Building Our Learning Environment

If you have not seen me in person recently, you may not be aware that my husband and I are expecting our first child, due to arrive at the end of April!  It has been so exciting to see ultrasound photos, hear the baby's heart beat, and share our joy with our family and friends as we anticipate this life-changing event.  As a part of our preparations, we are also spending time decorating a nursery for the baby.  We have a 10 ft x 12 ft room to work with, plenty of space for an infant, but we have still had numerous conversations about how we can be prepare the space for our new baby.  What colors will be calming and aesthetically pleasing?  What kind of furniture will be functional yet comfortable?  And will the furniture allow for enough flexibility to move the room into different configurations as the child grows and his/her needs change?

In my last few blog posts, I explained how our District 107 Future Planning Committee has honed in on three goal areas on which to focus over the course of the next five years: Building Learning Capacity, Building Learning Environments, and Building Human Capital.  While designing our 120 square foot nursery is nowhere near as challenging or as critical of a task as designing the learning environments in our schools, many of the questions my husband and I have asked ourselves about the nursery are helpful starting points for our conversations about building the learning environments in Pleasantdale schools.  What kind of furniture will be functional yet comfortable for learners (staff, students, community members)?  And will the furniture allow for enough flexibility to move the room into different configurations as the learners grow and their needs change over time?

The Future Planning Committee decided our District's goal is to "provide flexible learning environments that promote purposeful collaboration and a balanced educational approach to create inspired 21st century learners."  This means we will dig into research related to collaborative spaces and furniture for teachers and students and develop responsible plans for replacing and renewing technology for these spaces so staff and students alike are able to extend their learning beyond the walls of the classroom.  Articles like this one from EdTech Magazine explain how some schools have begun to transform their learning spaces while also creating easy opportunities for learners to connect and collaborate with others around the world.  As stated in the article, "What we're moving toward is flexible learning environments...It's not just the physical space -- it's the mindset, the skills intended to be taught and the physical environment, all combined."

There is a lot of truth in this statement.  Our goal of Building Learning Environments goes beyond simply building the physical learning environment; it also extends to the culture of learning created within our schools.  In one of my January blog posts, I wrote about the sound of future-ready learning spaces.  The points I make begin to speak to the type of culture we hope to create in our learning environments, which also ties into our portrait of a Pleasantdale Graduate.  Everything we will be doing with our learning spaces will be done with the aim to create students who are strong communicators and problem-solvers, who are confident individuals and global citizens.  It is our goal to create flexible learning spaces that will enable us to cultivate these characteristics in our Pleasantdale community of learners.