In my school design work, I always spend time in the school’s spaces when no one is present. I want to see how and what the school’s spaces communicate on their own without people present. Almost all of the classrooms I visit reflect that the space is the teacher's domain, with desks facing forward towards the front of the room, with a technology display and a teacher's desk...
The attention span of a typical child is two - three minutes for each year of age. You read that correctly. This means that a typical kindergartener can focus on a task for only 10-15 minutes. A 10 year-old can attend to an activity for 20 -30 minutes and...
A student's classroom environment serves as more than just a backdrop to their learning. Many modern theorists, inspired by the Reggio Emilia approach, consider the environment to act as a “third teacher” to the learner. The “first teacher” includes the adults that contribute to the child’s learning. The “second teacher”...
People use the design process to create things of value that serve human beings and, generally, to focus on improving the human condition.
Some things are designed better than others, and some things that have been designed are failures, but in every case, the design has had some type of impact.
This...
More and more school districts around the country are prioritizing Social-Emotional Learning. Researchers are finding that a well implemented Social-Emotional Learning, or SEL, program can result in increased attendance, test scores, grades, and even graduation rates. Furthermore, some districts report a decrease in costs related to remedial services and interventions...
When I taught Biology, I learned quickly that using visuals during instruction positively impacted student learning. In 1986, that meant taking photographs from a textbook, sending them to be developed as slides, and then using them in a slide projector...
Improving what students do at school requires a multi-faceted approach. Redesigning curriculum, rethinking assessment, providing social-emotional learning opportunities, improving student attendance and behavior, and other factors combine to create a challenging construct for improving schools.
To address school improvement, many schools have adopted a Portrait of A Graduate profile as a...
