Today’s workforces are designed for speed and flexibility. To achieve these goals, organizations are using more part-time, project-based freelancers to supplement their internal staff. Our research at the Agile Talent Collaborative reinforces findings from Accenture and other consulting and research firms: the use of freelancers — or agile talents as we call them — is growing, and for reasons that go well beyond cost efficiency. According to executives surveyed by the Collaborative, access to difficult-to-find technical or functional expertise, speed, flexibility, and innovation are the top five drivers of using talent outside your organization.
4 WAYS TO MODERNIZE YOUR CLASSROOMS TO IMPROVE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT
Research shows that classroom design has a significant impact on student performance. Constant use means that classrooms suffer a lot of wear, and can quickly look tired and outdated. Unfortunately, shrinking maintenance budgets mean many classrooms go years between redesigns, and student performance suffers as a result.
5 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR SCHOOL’S LIBRARY DESIGN
Your school’s library makes a vital contribution to student success, complementing classroom learning and providing an additional learning environment.
Research has repeatedly shown how important classroom design is for student performance and outcomes, and it’s clear that this holds true for all learning environments, not just traditional classrooms. Therefore, your school’s library design is just as important as classroom design.
Design what you like, but people may have different ideas about it
The story goes that, when Rem Koolhaas was appointed to design the McCormick Tribune Campus Center at the Illinois Institute of Technology in 2003, the legendary architect noticed how students had created their own pathways between the buildings as they had made their way around the site. The site of the new building included a field on which their footprints had worn down the grass to such an extent that distinct grooves had been carved out that reflected their movements. Given that his brief was to create a new building that serves as a central hub for student life and that he had already been offered an organic design blueprint for the way students used the campus, he decided to reflect this in the layout of the new building. The result is an irregular floor plan with diagonal corridors of differing widths linking the parts of the interior in a way that reflects the number of students who use the paths they create.
Tech Trends of 2016: Campus Co-Working
Tech firms are playing a significant role in changing the way we work. Tech and start-up culture has long recognized the benefits of co-working spaces and their relationship to fostering innovation. Now, more traditional industries, including media, healthcare and finance, are recognizing this modern work style’s appeal: serendipitous encounters, community, the free exchange of advice/ideas and shared purpose.
The need to attract young talent, along with lack of affordable real estate and the desire to do meaningful work, have contributed to co-working’s increasing popularity. Whether it’s a large corporation installing teams in external co-working spaces or finding like-minded companies to co-locate on their campuses, the goal is the same: to come together to help fuel new ideas, improve products and push the world forward.
Coupling Technology with Space Enhances Student Engagement
Rapid advances in technology have stimulated changes in educational delivery. Initially, industry leaders touted the ‘virtual classroom’ as the answer to personalized learning and improved outcomes. In reality, it is the combination of instruction, technology and space that enhances student engagement, resulting in improved academic success and greater student retention.
Studies have shown that interactive classrooms improve academic outcomes. However, as we design space and the necessary technology infrastructure to maximize collaboration, we must gain in-depth knowledge of how spatial configuration influences behavior. This seemingly simple concept impacts things like adjacencies, room size and orientation, accessibility, furniture and system selection, future infrastructure requirements, and additional collaboration opportunities.
LEARNING FROM LEARNING DIFFERENCES: LESSONS FROM THE LAB SCHOOL OF WASHINGTON
In part two of our three part series, Arnold Levin explores what the workplace design and strategy profession can learn from design initiatives adopted by schools that focus on children with learning differences.
In the first article of this series, I set forth my hypothesis that learning differences (LD) represent both an overlooked area of attention by workplace strategists and designers in our approach to developing workplace strategies. LD can also be a lens though which we can better understand the relationship between workplace design and organizational performance, based on the notion that there is a direct correlation between learning styles and work styles.
In this second article, I will expand on the importance of understanding the nature of learning differences, it’s ability to be a roadmap to better understand the importance of learning styles, and how the workplace design and strategy profession can learn from the design initiatives being adopted by many schools that focus on children with learning differences.
The Trends and Challenges Shaping Technology Adoption In Schools
Every year for the past 15 years the New Media Consortium and the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) have been taking the pulse of where education technology stands among K-12 educators. A panel of 59 experts from 18 countries discussed major trends in education that are driving the adoption of technology, as well as the big challenges to effective implementation. This collaborative effort helps to paint a picture of where things stand now and where they might be going. This year NMC and CoSN have also put together a digital toolkit to help educators and policy leaders start conversations about these trends in their community, with the hope that some of the changes they see happening in pockets around the world will become more broadly accepted.
HIGHER EDUCATION TRENDS: HOW TO ADJUST FOR GROUP LEARNING ACTIVITIES
Anyone who has recently sat in or observed a college classroom knows: the times of lecturing to a large group of students is coming to an end. While some large universities still prefer the lecture format, increasing numbers of smaller institutions are looking to smaller groups to improve learning experience and knowledge retention. It’s becoming a significant trend in higher education, and one worth monitoring as it relates to classroom design.
FROM CLASSROOMS TO BOARDROOMS: KEY ELEMENTS FOR LEARNING AND WORKING SPACES
Today’s classrooms and offices are catering to a different world, a world driven by the Internet, smart phones, and other innovations unimaginable during the Industrial Revolution. There is also new research available that points to more effective approaches in teaching and learning.
Educators have realized that learning is more effective when students are engaged with one another (active learning) rather than when students sit and watch a lecture (passive learning). Retention rates are significantly higher when students are working together in collaborative, hands-on experiences. At the heart of active, project-based learning is the effort to develop students’ non-cognitive skills. These social/emotional skills — including communication, collaboration, creativity, perseverance and critical thinking — are uniquely fostered by this kind of active learning.
Study proves classroom design really does matter
In a pilot study by the University of Salford and architects, Nightingale Associates, it was found that the classroom environment can affect a child’s academic progress over a year by as much as 25%.
The year-long pilot study was carried out in seven Blackpool LEA primary schools. 34 classrooms with differing learning environments and age groups took part.
Classroom Makeover Transforms Learning
One year after receiving an Active Learning Center Grant from Steelcase Education, a Michigan high school classroom is taking stock of the changes it’s already seen in students and teachers.
Traditional classrooms are geared toward lecture mode and do not foster student participation. The goal for this new classroom was to transform an old computer lab into a space that promoted active learning through collaboration and student engagement.
Classroom of the Future Created for Media Arts Center
Tasked with imagining the newsroom-classroom of the future, Palo Alto High School in Palo Alto, CA journalism teachers and students envisioned a Media Arts Center that would promote multi-platform publishing, collaboration, a sense of community, transparency and innovation.
The Best New Schools Don't Look Like Schools At All
It's all about using open architecture to nurture young minds.
Reimagining the Modern Classroom
The seats, space, and stuff that idyllic learning environments are made of.
Students need to be in classrooms that inspire them—spaces that are light, airy, and filled with examples of work that they aspire to do. Each school will have a variety of spacious classroom settings. Some will be more traditional in the way that we envision classrooms now, but others might be set up outside or within an atrium or amphitheater. There might be desks, cushions, or benches arranged in rows or circles—however the teachers want them, as not every classroom will follow a template.
US College Libraries Reinvented for Digital Age
Hundreds of schools, from Ivy League universities to community colleges, have remade their libraries as colorful hubs of college life. Gone are bound journals, miles of musty books and rules governing proper behavior. In are on-site cafes, group study areas where talking is encouraged, 24-hour access and sofas designed for dozing.
The welcoming touches reflect the latest thinking about the millennial generation's learning habits and recognition that students with laptops and Wi-Fi access can study anywhere, said Julie Garrison, Western Michigan University dean of libraries.
STANDING DESKS LEAD TO IMPROVED BMI IN CHILDREN, RESEARCH SHOWS
Texas A&M researchers have shown, for the first time, evidence that standing desks in classrooms can slow the increase in elementary school children’s body mass index (BMI)—a key indicator of obesity—by an average of 5.24 percentile points. The research was published today in the American Journal of Public Health.
“Research around the world has shown that standing desks are positive for the teachers in terms of classroom management and student engagement, as well as positive for the children for their health, cognitive functioning and academic achievement,” said Mark Benden, PhD, CPE, an associate professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at the Texas A&M School of Public Health and an author of the study. “It’s literally a win-win, and now we have hard data that shows it is beneficial for weight control.”
Standing Desks Are Coming for Your Children
Despite the constant back and forth on its health and productivity benefits, the standing desk—the Skechers Shape-Ups of office furniture—has gone fromworkplace curiosity to a fixture of the modern office. But there's a yet untouched desk pasture ripe for colonization by our favorite love-to-hate workstation: schools.
A handful of classrooms have already ditched traditional sit-only desks for their standing counterparts, but following a new study from Texas A&M this week, a lot more could follow. Researchers found that standing desks had a positive impact on the body mass index (BMI) of kids who use them.
What's Your Classroom Inviting Students to Do? 4 Configurations to Consider.
Whatever you decided, the clunky, heavy, built-to-last furniture was inflexible and would likely stay put for the year. Some of the more eager teachers might consider moving around furniture from time to time, but the work involved usually meant the furniture stayed put most of the time. The limited mobility not only hampers interaction among students, instructors and content but the static environment actually became a barrier to learning.
The PUSH and PULL of Culture, Education and Economy
In 1998, when Don Tapscott published “Growing Up Digital” the definition of the classroom of the future was not fully clear. No one definitively predicted the full spectrum of changes in curriculum, culture and technology we are experiencing today.
In multiple school districts across the country of all sizes, shapes and settings, a cultural transformation is occurring as a result of the pull of an ever changing workforce economy and a push from students who want to be engaged, who want to create their own pathways for advancement.