DESIGN OF LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

Education Cities has been and is involved in the building process of many schools in Israel and around the world. That is from the planning stage, writing of the pedagogical program, guiding the founding team, training the staff and working with the architect in building the physical structure according to the school’s pedagogical guidelines.

The space dimension is one of the five dimensions of the 2021 Classroom. In the space dimension we ask, What will an actual space that develops meaningful learning look like?

Until today, when we’ve talked about design of learning spaces, we thought about decorated walls that “send a massage,” a kind of a professional decoration team.

The reality that surrounds us has changed dramatically in the last few decades, however, there is one place that remained frozen in time – learning spaces. In most cases, they have remained unchanged for years.

We call for a change in the perception of learning environments or as defined by Loris Malaguzzi, the Third Teacher – nonverbal education.

Education Cities is leading the new discourse via a range of initiatives and collaborations with the academia and with a community of architects and designers who are connected to the vision and to the desire to affect and drive a change in learning spaces in Israel.

In December 2014, we have held a first of its kind conference that dealt with the interface between education and design, where we have presented Education Cities’ principles for implementing a change in learning spaces.

These principles are the brainchild of a development process that is based on profound learning and accumulated field experience.

The process of a change in learning environments is built on three partners:

Designer

Pedagogic Advisor

Teacher

This collaboration enables the creation of a meaningful, profound, and groundbreaking change. A holistic process for creating learning spaces that are in congruence with the new pedagogic principles, and which develops in the learners the skills necessary for life in the 21^st century.

Within this collaboration, the creating teacher is the central axis and the generator of the change in space. The support process invites the teacher to set out on an empowering journey of learning and inspiration, dreaming and imagination, and shared community-based creativity. All within learning and experiencing Design Thinking, which perceives design as a way of life, a way to cope with challenges by creating a better reality.

guidelines for design by Education Cities

Education Cities’ principles of learning environments’ design

When education & design interface

Transform the space into a third teacher

Teaching as a generator of growth

Learn from personal experience, from colleagues, and from the world

Start with the ones that are “crazy for it”

the rest will follow

Quality before quantity

start from “your element”

Together – transform the classroom into a community – teachers and students that create together

The classroom as a home – what makes a home? How do we bring it into the classroom?

A flexible space – aspire to create a modular, enabling, and dynamic space

Housewarming – every creation, even the smallest, must be celebrated and acknowledged!

Work in open code – create and disseminate your principles