Creating 21st Century Learning Environments

Abstract

What is involved in creating learning environments for the 21 st century? How can school facilities serve as tools for teaching and meet the needs of students in the future? What components are required to design effective schools, and how does architecture relate to the purposes of schooling? These are some of the questions addressed at the seminar on “Creating 21 st Century Learning Environments” organised by the United Kingdom’s Department for Education and Skills and the OECD Programme on Educational Building (PEB). The answers provided by four people with first-hand experience in building schools are summarised here. A development and management professional explains how the school building can serve as a three-dimensional learning tool. A school principal describes how his recently-built public school in New Zealand was designed to meet the learning needs of 21 st century students. A building planner presents what he considers the essential components for developing effective facilities for tomorrow, supported by his own experience in planning schools. Finally, the director of an architectural firm defines the common purposes of secondary schooling and their relation to design.environment, Australia, United States, New Zealand, design, Singapore, management, planning

Learning spaces and pedagogic change: envisioned, enacted and experienced

“…The significant public investment that has been made in many countries over the past decade in the educational infrastructure of universities, colleges and schools has prompted interest in the re-consideration of learning and the spaces where learning takes place. Attention is being given to the idea that arrangements of space critically influence patterns of learning and teaching in education (Li et al 2005). Space has come to matter in policy processes that aspire to meet the needs of learners in the twenty-first century (Ministerial Council on Education Employment Training and Youth Affairs 2008;OECD 2013) and in educational practice (Brooks , 2012.…”