thinking4leaders
  • Home
  • Learning Spaces
  • Visual Literacy
  • Time to Create
  • Readings
  • About Me

Leanne's Blog

Just a little aside into how I'm leading the design of a new learning space with teachers and students in Upper Primary.

The first step is always the hardest

2/8/2014

2 Comments

 
Picture
Take baby steps along the way and in the end you will reach your goal...

Today an enthusiastic group of teachers voluntarily gave up 3 hours of their time after school to start planning a new learning space for students of Year 5 & 6 and for students coming into those grades in future years. Our brief:
To design an effective learning space for students of today and tomorrow.

Initial brainstorming was centred around answering three key questions:

1. How should students learn?
2. Where do students learn?
3. With whom should students learn?

We used post-it notes to record our key beliefs and ideas for what should be included in the design based on our own personal experiences, values and beliefs about education, for students of today and tomorrow. When we ran out of ideas we looked at other schools who had gone before us, viewing photos, videos and books for further inspiration. We read articles, blogs and other websites and added more detail to our ideas.  Shoeless learning, having a "soapbox" and fairy lights under bench tops were all important. Providing little 
nooks and crannies and safe places for children to hide were valued as much as providing space for collaborative learning at tables, windows or standing in small groups.  Flexible learning spaces that could be assembled independently and put up within three minutes were discovered to be most effective.



Next step...involving Yr 6 students

2 Comments
Selena Dobie
2/12/2014 09:28:18 am

Hi Leanne!
Our school is in the process of purchasing some initial pieces of furniture to redesign our classroom spaces. We love the products from Furnware but it is difficult (and expensive) to get in Canada: http://youtu.be/kRSJrN1h3as

Reply
Leanne
2/16/2014 04:26:29 pm

Hi there
Thanks for the info re the furniture - our school has some of the chairs in classrooms but I didn't realise they had the others that can be moved around. Good news for us is that at least we can get them in. Sorry you can't get it into Canada though. ;-(

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    I've been working with international students for the whole of my teaching career in Singapore, Hong Kong, Venezuela and London. Lifelong learning is my passion, whether it be alongside students , teachers, friends or for myself. Having a passion for developing new ideas into real action is what drives me. 

    View my profile on LinkedIn

    Archives

    October 2014
    May 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014

    Categories

    All
    Creativity
    Educational Design
    Learning Space
    Managing Change
    Student Inquiry
    Student Voice

    Flag Counter

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly