The following piece was originally published by bdcnetwork.com from Peter Fabris, Contributing Editor
At a prototype classroom on the campus of Baylor University, in Waco, Texas, school officials and teachers experiment with new types of furniture, workgroup configurations, projectors, writing boards, and mobile technology to test new teaching methods and classroom layouts.
New styles of working—more collaborative and project-based—and mobile technology are changing how people work. The K-12 education sector is responding to those trends.
The need to revamp schools to keep up with the times adds urgency to planning and funding decisions. K-12 construction put in place declined to $12.9 billion in 2015, from $14 billion in 2014, according to School Planning & Management, so school districts have had to upgrade their physical plants with fewer resources.
The impact on design of mobile computing devices, movable furniture, team teaching styles, and more collaborative project work means most architects are creating classrooms far different from the ones in which they were educated. Space flexibility is critical to classroom design. Spaces have to be adaptable, even allowing for drastic changes such as, say, a doubling of classroom size.
K-12 design and construction firm leaders know they must keep close tabs on trends in primary and secondary education during this time of great flux. Who can predict with 100% accuracy how new generations of technology will influence teaching and learning? Where there is uncertainty over pedagogy, there must be a proportional amount of flexibility built into the design. Firms that connect best with educators tapped into influential trends will have a distinct advantage in this market.
These innovative trends remind us of the classroom design implementation at Chillicothe Schools.