Designing the School of
the Future: Lessons from Experimental Work
Prof.
David Chen
School
of Education, Tel Aviv University, Israel
Introduction
The architectural
design of a school is an expression of the current philosophies
and view of what the goals and functions of schooling are all
about. Contemporary schooling is the product of the industrial
revolution. The need for mass education, as well as some of the
conceptual foundations of schooling were conceived at the end of
the nineteenth century. Therefore, the mechanical metaphor is so
pervasive in practically every aspect of twentieth century
schools. Even today, the dawn of the twenty-first century, we
still employ mechanical notions that make the school look like the
industrial production line. The concept of "standards",
the child brain of the industrial revolution has emerged as a
central idea driving educational policy, While we can standardize
raw material and physical products, there is no way we can
standardize people. Diversity and variability, rather than
standardized similarity are at the basis of human existential
being. The notions of input, output and effectivity so widely used
among educators, are also stemming from the machine-age percepts.
The overall contemporary school design reflects very clearly the
mechanical metaphor.
The
basic unit of the school building (as well as its pedagogy) is the
standard classroom (49m2
in
Israel). Therefore each school can have 6, 12, IS, 24, and 30
classrooms following the number of grades and the size of age
cohort- Learning is done in groups of 40 students (ia practice the
average number is about 30). A lesson" is a standard time
unit of one hour, A school day consists of about 6 lessons. A
school week consists of 6 days (in Israel). The school year has
180 days (where are the missing 184 days of the year?).
The long corridors
of the school buildings where classrooms are linearly laid out in
line - from grade to grade VI and more, also represent the
production function assumption that linear relationship prevails
between input (time, curriculum) and output (achievements,
learning).
It is very hard to
accept the fact that Newtonian mechanics that provided the
theoretical underlying principles for the machine, still drive
much of the educational enterprise practices. However, it is also
the time to rethink both our theoretical assumptions and
educational practices.
It
is the objective of this paper to show how changes in our basic
assumptions regarding education by and large, and the design of
schools specifically, can affect the conceptualization of
schooling and school architecture.
The school of the
future is an experiment that aspires to define new theoretical
Foundations for education and derive experimental practices
regarding school design and practices.
The experiment
started in 1991 and continues to this very day. Design and
planning took place between 1991 and 1993. The construction of the
school building took place during 1994, and the school was opened
in 1995, followed by research, development and evaluation until
2000.
We Will begin by
offering a brief description of the theoretical framework
underlying the school design. We started by redefining education:
"Education
is
about the relationship
between
ontogenetic knowledge (the knowledge
constructed
In
the
Individual throughout the development cycle
and
growth)
and the phylogenetic knowledge (that is public knowledge
represented by the curriculum)."
The
magnitude of public knowledge relative to the individual knowledge
is for all practical reasons infinite, thus at the very essence of
learning, lies the need to make choices. Putting students and the
student population at the center.
of
the educational enterprise and processes entails deriving
educational design out of a humanistic metaphor that takes into
account what science has told us about human nature, rather than
the mechanistic metaphor based on man-machine analogy.
The working
hypothesis regarding the school of the future is that information
technologies (computer, television, communications) enforces
radical changes in the relationships between individual knowledge
an public knowledge.
These changes are
mainly:
The change
from linear to complex representation of knowledge;
The change
from static to dynamic representation of knowledge;
The change
from insulated to connected (networked) structure of knowledge;
The change
from symbolic modes of knowledge representation;
The change in
meaning of space and place, and
The change in
the organization of time patterns.
These changes have
far reaching implications on the entire spectrum of the design of
learning systems: the goals, the curriculum, the pedagogics,
organization and management and the architecture of the school,
This is, of
course, a very brief summary of the theoretical framework
underlying the overall design of what we called - The School of
the Future model.
We will now try to
focus on the implications that each and every aspect of the
expected changes have had on the design of the school, focusing on
the architectural aspects of the new pedagogics predicted, There
are two principles to remember in regard to the specific design:
It was the
theoretical framework that led and yielded the architectural
design,
The mandate
we received from the Ministry of Education was to maintain the
overall dimensions of the school within the existing constraints
of space and budget.
The results
therefore represent somewhat of a compromise between the ideal and
reality. So. here is the way the theoretical considerations were
transformed into design principles. The notion that human
knowledge is a complex, non-linear entity is based on the
information theory of Claude Shannon. Thus, learning does not have
to be linear, sequential and hierarchical,
Perhaps the
so-called "hypermedia' principle of organizing the
computational learning environment is a good example of the
consequences that the non-linearity principle allows. So how
should we design the physical learning environment in response to
this principle? Certainly, there is no simple answer to that, nor
are there empirical analogies, yet several guiding principles
emerge:
There
is no need for the classical classroom. This was replaced with the
concept of "home". The home is both a social and a
physical concept. The home unit is a defined space in which a
group of 80 student and 3
teachers
can organize flexible and interchangeable learning situations.
Three models were
proposed:
The computer
garden - an area in which individualized learning can take place.
The general
assembly space, in which either the entire social group could
meet, or groups could provide the learning unit.
The
small auditorium is a flexible space that can be either separated
from the general assembly for large learning groups, or project
teams to work, or integrated with the rest of the space to
increase its
holding
capacity.
Access to
knowledge is provided through distributed network around the
entire school. Thus the design principles are very clear: the
learning environment allows for flexible organization according to
the needs of the users.
The learning
environment is not hierarchical, and not linear in accordance with
the mode of knowledge structure and distribution, knowledge can be
accessed practically in any cbnfiguration of the learning
environment
The second
principle employed in the new design is the principle of dynamics
of knowledge. Public knowledge is perceived as growing, emerging,
increasing, constructed and even decaying. The dynamic theory of
knowledge, as conceived by De Solla Prise and Robert Kuhn, as well
as the introduction of knowledge technologies, requires the
reconceptualization of the learning environments.
The concept of the
library as a discrete entity where students may have access to
books is replaced by the concept of resource center. The resource
center is an extended version of the contemporary library. In
addition to the physical representations of knowledge such as
books, records and artifacts, the resource center maintains the
school data-bank - symbolic, acoustic and visual in a digital
format that can be accessed anywhere at school or at the student's
home. The extensive network is an indispensable element of the
overall infrastructure of the school. New communication
technologies are already available that will eliminate the need
for the extensive wiring that is currently used for the network.
The dynamics of
knowledge can empower the young individual learner to become an
"independent learner." The new pedagogy based on
Piaget's notion of the active learner, is reinforced in a dynamic
environment where the student can carry out an independent study,
an inquiry, or project-based learning and construct hisiher own
knowledge independently, This sort of approach to teaching and
learning requires certain design elements that allow for some
privacy, storage of products and continuity in time. Most of these
requirements can be accommodated by interior design.
The third
principle of multimedia representation of knowledge calls mainly
for the extended use visual language for learning, Traditional
schools were, and still do, focus heavily on symbolic
representation (alpha numeric) which is the basis for all modern
science. However, the visual language might provide a very
powerful tool for concrete thinkers, and anyway, culture-wise,
through television and video, have become a central piece of the
information age.
Right now the
computer screen provides the main visual learning environment, and
the merging of the TV on PC technologies improves significantly,
the efficiency of this environment, yet additional provisions have
to be made to extend visualization. This was done by providing
VCR's and TV large screens in the homes, and creating screening
facilities within a large auditorium, The layout of the learning
environments must provide visibility of screens to small and large
groups.
The fourth
principle has to do with the change into connectedness. The notion
that knowledge is neither discrete nor isolated is realized mainly
in the creation of the information highway, the cyberspace or as
it were - the internet. We do not take the radical stand that the
internet and the resulting distance learning make the school void.
Rather, we see the internet as an extension of the school as a
learning environment. Thus the real school should be considered as
the hub for the so-called virtual school and emanating from the
school community's overall function.
The specialized
learning areas such as, the science and technology laboratory is
now the base from which tele-sensoring provides data from remote
areas on the globe, the space, or from micro-worlds beyond what
the senses can reach. The language barrier can be overcome and can
bring cultures as well as people closer through teleconferencing.
The last two
changes - that is the implications of the technology to the
utilization of time and space - overarch and emanate from the
former changes. The following are some changes regarding the
utilization of space. Schooling can be extended beyond the
physical and geographical boundaries. The major changes in this
respect are the relationship between the school and the student
residence, Organized learning can be extended through the distance
learning mechanism, both synchronically and a-synchronically, thus
enabling to increase significantly the "time or task' of the
students, and utilization of learning resources, Teachers can
extend their professional development far beyond the school
building and the standard schooling hours, thus becoming a real
learning organization and increasing the effectivity of the
school.
Parents can get
connected as well, thus getting involved in the teaching and
learning processes of their children, as well as maintaining
contact with the teachers regarding the progress of their
children,
The school can
bring in virtual expertise that doesn't exist at school and so
enrich both the learning resources for all as well as for
special-needs children,
it is important to
understand that the underlying principle implied by the networking
and connectedness is that it is the school that is extended rather
than
distributed.
One
of the most significant changes has to do with time for learning,
Quantitatively formal school utilizes 180 days a year, at about
the rate of 30 hours. a week, or 5 hours per day. The resources of
time can be extended significantly with an increase in school
effectiveness.
Qualitatively, the
distribution of time within the school day can now be handled
individually according to the individual's needs.
The management of
time by the school principal, the teachers and the students will
change entirely from standardized time units to flexible and
adaptive schedules that conform with the needs of the individual,
The experimental
school has now completed five years since its opening. The
evaluation research, now being summarized, indicates that the new
paradigm and the school's new learning environment significantly
increases the achievements of the students across the entire
curriculum as compared with the standard achievements set by
the international
evaluation association. It is also clear that teachers perform
significantly better, thus the attitudes of children,
parents and teachers are significantly high as compared with other
experimental schools.
We
would like to conclude by suggesting that our research indicates
that the success story of the new schooling design is the result
of the overall system changes that took place, rather the isolated
discrete changes in isolated variables such as the curriculum,
teacher's professional development or changes in
the
design of the learning environment The major lesson for the
architectural design that we have learnt is that the planning and
design of the school building should follow its pedagogical
paradigm rather than enforcing it.
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