Nine principles of designing and using school learning environments to best pedagogical effect

Over he last few years, I’ve been diving deep into the research on learning space design as a way to establish a foundation for support and inspiration that I’m trying to provide teachers and leaders around optimizing their physical environments through intentional design. There is growing research that physical space design has a variety of positive impacts on student growth and development. This isn’t settled science, but a recent study released by the University of Melbourne points to nine principles that should be central to the conversations that schools and districts are having about space design. The link to the summary of findings is HERE. This was a three year study of a cluster of schools that have modernized their space design. Here are the nine principles.

1. A dynamic social and physical environment.

2. Variety and choice, with respect to both settings and activities.

3. The capacity to differentiate and personalize learning experiences, including across independent, small group, and whole class activities.

4. Ready access to multiple learning settings, commonly differentiated by furniture arrangements and/or glazed separations between spaces of different sizes.

5. Engaging and meaningful teaching and learning experiences, including opportunities for instruction, interaction and reflective retreat.

6. Options to socially organize students in varied ways, within the same class and/or across multiple classes.

7. Good acoustics, especially in more open spaces.

8. Good sight lines, to enable the consistent observation and monitoring of students’ activities.

9. A design that recognizes the physical, organisational, temporal and cultural histories of the school/school sector and allows for pedagogical development over time, without alienating teachers from their past practices.