Aligning the pedagogy of environment and practice

Day 2 started with a workshop together reviewing the thinking of how a school activates the physical space they have. Firstly, from the design expectation, and then, into how this is developed and maintained by teachers and learners. 

Whether with a new building or not similar questions can be asked to help us create a philosophy similar to 'next step technology' - that is making the option of doing what we've always done not a viable option anymore. These questions include:

• What are our values and beliefs that drive why we do what we do? (Our central circle of our shared values and beliefs is huge) 
• What kind of behaviours do we want to encourage?
• The use of effective pedagogy is determined by who?

If you believe learning is holistic and have a common understanding of the shared practice in your school as a staff then your shared beliefs will align with the core values and beliefs, while still giving room for individual differences in individual practice. This shared ownership of processes gives shared ownership of actions which gives the best atmosphere for practice to continue to evolve over time and not just fall into a new rut. This can be described as design slippage. To avoid this rut constant reflection around the vision on the use of space can create balance between shared expectations of practice while still giving room for individual teacher ownership. Asking why do we want either or both can help us find that balance. This can be termed as the lens of coherence - how do things relate back to the why?

Some Terminology:
Flexible learning space - not definitive enough
Adaptable - to different needs

Agile adaptable - spaces that can quickly adapted for different purposes
And purposeful - for a particular purpose

Integrated learning space - flow between them without barrier.

Above all - whatever space we have we need to remember that it must be a space to suit the learning, not the place where that learning has to happen.

What does this mean for our single cell - yet conceptually aligned design?