Teachers’ pre-occupancy evaluation of affordances in a multi-zone flexible learning environment – introducing an analytical model

Frelin, Anneli; Grannäs, Jan

doi:10.1080/14681366.2020.1797859

Cited by 16 publications

(15 citation statements)

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“…Additional things to consider are the testing of new organizational solutions with co-teaching and larger pupil groups and alternative ways of scheduling the teaching and learning activities. The challenges of changing established ways of working, organization, and alignments when transitioning to an ILE need further attention [4].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Designing and Building Robust Innovative Learning Environments

Frelin

Grannäs

2021

Buildings

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Prior research shows that creating innovative learning spaces that work well for pupils and teachers is a challenge which implicates different stakeholders. The aim of this article is to inquire into how educational visions evolve and are expressed through the different phases of two school design processes as well as visualize how stakeholders’ roles in the processes result in innovative learning environments and practices that work well. The data consists of photographs from school visits, briefs, and interviews. The material is analyzed with a particular focus on educational vision, organization, and working methods. An analytical model showing the stakeholders’ levels of participation at each stage is revised and developed. The results indicate four common themes: Continuity (several stakeholders involved in more than one phase); Preparation (processes were long-term, continuous, and iterative, with future users testing and evaluating prototypes and other innovative interior design elements to be used in the new spaces); Alignment (early and extensive considerations of the school’s organization and working methods); and Participation (multi-professional teams with representation of a pedagogical perspective at the higher levels of participation). From this, it can be concluded that achieving robust, innovative learning environments involves stakeholders’ regard to the aspects of knowledge, education, organization, and economy.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This article also highlights the organization of practices, such as co-teaching and subject teaching, in the preparation work. As organizational components are in need of further attention in research on ILEs [4], they are factors to consider in the alignment of vision and practices in new school buildings.…”

Section: Alignment: Creating Organizational Robustnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Designing and Building Robust Innovative Learning Environments

Frelin

Grannäs

2021

Buildings

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“…This is an inductive research method that was developed in Sweden to make participants more aware of their physical environment and educational opportunities in that respect [26]. The method can be applied in different contexts at any school level for both pre-and post-occupancy evaluations [15]. It is currently being tried out within the framework of a European research project on collaborative redesigns of school buildings [27] and was used in this study to reflect the conceived strengths and weaknesses of a construction that represents new trends in school building design.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Academic interest in successful educational improvements has gone through several phases over time, leading to the current focus on a systemic approach, and emphasizing the complexity of educational systems and the significance of coherence and interdependency among their different components [13,14]. The physical learning environment is one such component that has to be in alignment with other components for educational efforts to succeed [12,[15][16][17], which helps to underline how urgent it is to study new models of design and how they might support intended pedagogical approaches.…”

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confidence: 99%

Pedagogical Walks through Open and Sheltered Spaces: A Post-Occupancy Evaluation of an Innovative Learning Environment

Sigurðardóttir

Hjartarson

Snorrason³

2021

Buildings

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This paper describes a post-occupancy evaluation of a school building in Iceland that combines open and confined spaces, designed for manifold pedagogical approaches and multiple uses. The school was built for students at the primary and lower secondary school levels and serves a neighborhood still under construction in a coastal town about 40 km from Iceland’s capital area. The building will be an essential part of a larger complex, constituting the heart of its neighborhood, including a compulsory school tied into a preschool, a public library, sports facilities, and a site for local events. Our aim was to map how plans for this innovative learning environment have succeeded, as viewed by practitioners and students. Several research interviews with leaders of the building project and a method called pedagogical walk-throughs were used to collect data. Four focus groups of teachers, teaching assistants, and students were asked to review selected sections of the building. The results serve to show the strengths and weaknesses of the design, as perceived by participants, as well as commend the methodology applied. They provide insights and considerations of value for anyone involved in the design and application of educational spaces.

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“…Nordquist & Fisher, 2018). The same can be said for multi-functional innovative learning environments that offer variation and differentiation in the teaching and learning (Frelin & Grannäs, 2020). These kinds of learning environments are also time-efficient, in that students and teachers do not have to spend time moving between different spaces for teacher instruction and group work (Lundahl, Gruffman-Cruse, Malmros, Sundbaum, & Tieva, 2017).…”

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confidence: 99%

Transitions in Nordic school environments – an introduction

2021

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Transitions in Nordic school environments -an introductionIn the Nordic countries, with their longstanding tradition of valuing education for the masses, a large number of schools have been built over a more than century-long period and therefore represent a variety of pedagogical and architectonical ideals (Bengtsson, 2011). For example, the school landscape represents traditional and progressive ideals and in terms of the buildings themselves, those that are currently considered as highly innovative exist in parallel with more traditional schools from earlier decades. However, a school design that was considered radical at the time of its construction may be considered old-fashioned and unfit for purpose today. Despite the importance of school buildings for education, research-based knowledge about them is limited, especially in educational research and in the Nordic countries. At present, such research is mostly conducted and published in the Australian, UK and US contexts. The special issue of this journal addresses this knowledge gap by focusing on the relations between educational practices and school environments in the Nordic countries and highlighting the intentions, complexities and negotiations relating to the design, building and use of schools at different levels. A growing research fieldResearch on school buildings and environments is a growing and multidisciplinary field and involves scholars from several different disciplines. This has become apparent at research conferences. Educational researchers have enriched this research field with perspectives that are not usually addressed in other disciplines, such as architecture or environmental psychology. For example, in history of education school design and architecture have been studied for their temporal and societal contexts and the kinds of citizens they aim to foster (Burke & Grosvenor, 2008;Darian-Smith & Willis, 2016;Grosvenor & Rosén Rasmussen, 2018). The multidisciplinary nature of the research field is also expressed in individual projects, in which researchers with different backgrounds collaborate. Such examples of projects from the Swedish context include: one on the role of physical space for learning (Alerby, Bengtsson, Bjurström, Hörnqvist, & Kroksmark, 2006), another on learning spaces from the perspectives of architecture, design, lighting design, school planning and special education (de Laval, 2017), the third on a post-occupancy evaluation of school buildings (de Laval, Frelin, & Grannäs, 2019) and the fourth a comparative research study of two newly built schools characterised as innovative learning environments (Frelin & Grannäs, n.d.).Various themes can be discerned in the research field. One theme is policy processes relating to transitions into new learning environments (e.g.

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Teachers’ pre-occupancy evaluation of affordances in a multi-zone flexible learning environment – introducing an analytical model

Cited by 16 publications

References 54 publications

Designing and Building Robust Innovative Learning Environments

Designing and Building Robust Innovative Learning Environments

Pedagogical Walks through Open and Sheltered Spaces: A Post-Occupancy Evaluation of an Innovative Learning Environment

Transitions in Nordic school environments – an introduction

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