Essentials Magazine Essentials Fall 2018 | Page 16

Future of Schools
with spaces dedicated to individual,
collaborative, and small-group learn-
ing. One pod focuses on a humanities
curriculum and the other on a STEM
curriculum. In each pod, a “coast-
line” of workspaces provides for per-
sonalized online learning, “exchange
tables” host peer-to-peer learning,
and “pop-up classes” provide areas
for teachers to work with 12 students
at a time. These spaces are skillfully
interlocked with one another to min-
imize disturbance between activities.
First time visitors to Intrinsic are
always surprised by the corridors.
You won’t find hallway lockers or
the ubiquitous double-loaded school
corridor anywhere. Instead, you will
find hallways lined with windows
and views. Since Intrinsic students
use Chromebooks, they don’t have to
rely on lockers to store books as they
move from room to room.
The resulting building has far more
space dedicated to learning than a
traditional building where so much
square footage is wasted on large
hallways — 55 percent compared to
25 percent at most new district high
schools in Chicago. As a result, it is a
much more cost-effective building.
Intrinsic, which was built with union
labor, enjoyed cost savings that were at
least twice that of schools of a compa-
rable size.
Challenges to moving
in this direction
There is a lot of inertia in school
building design, so moving in this di-
rection will not be easy. There are two
obvious challenges.
First, in the 1970s a wave of builders
tried to move to an open classroom de-
sign, which ultimately failed as educa-
tors spent the 1980s and 1990s erecting
walls. There is a difference now, howev-
er. In the 1970s, there was an assump-
tion that any learning activity could
occur anywhere. In other words, you
wouldn’t need to design specific spaces
for specific modalities of learning. In
trying to be all things to all modalities,
however, the spaces were suboptimal
16 essentials | fall 2018
for any activity. On top of that, in the
absence of any technological advanc-
es, the dominant model of instruction
was still a teacher talking to her class,
which produces noise that could disturb
a neighboring class or silent learning
activity. Blended learning changes this
dynamic because of the introduction of
online learning, but it’s still important to
bear in mind that spaces in new build-
ings must be purpose-built and not try
to be universal in nature.
Second, a significant number of
building codes have emerged in dis-
tricts and cities over the years that are
at odds with what designers and educa-
tors may want to do with new building
designs. With Intrinsic Schools, for
example, Kearns said they had to apply
“for every kind of code relief possible.
Since the codes only referenced the
egg-crate school, no one knew how to
apply the rules. So the major trap to
avoid is the impulse to design schools
literally by the books that exist now.”
Other opportunities
with new designs
There are two other clear oppor-
tunities with new school design. First,
there is the opportunity to create
spaces that feature far more interaction
for teachers with their fellow peers.
Research has shown this professional
interaction is a big positive, and new
designs can greatly increase the num-
ber of interactions beyond anything
we are accustomed to, as teachers can
co-teach and students will benefit from
exposure to a much larger social group
and multiple instructors with different
strengths and styles.
Second, it’s likely that with technol-
ogy handling basic instruction, maker
spaces will become far more common
in schools. These spaces will allow
students to work on 3D-printers, laser
cutters, and more to explore and test
ideas in the humanities, math, science,
and engineering.
The future
As Kearns said, “If blended learn-
ing is a more effective way to educate,
it is similarly a more efficient way to
build schools.” Although the best many
educators can do at the moment is
hack their current space with simple
workarounds, the real example of a
missed opportunity is when leaders
get the chance to build a new building
or renovate an old, and they choose to
perpetuate the integrated factory-type
blueprint. After all, who wants to be
the designer that builds the last twenti-
eth-century school building?
n
MICHAEL B. HORN is the
EDspaces 2018 Keynote Speaker at
the Opening Plenary on Wednesday,
November 7, 2018, at 9:30 am
at the Tampa Convention Center.
MICHAEL B. HORN speaks and writes about the
future of education and works with a portfolio of
education organizations to improve the life of each and
every student. He is the co-founder of and a distin-
guished fellow at the Clayton Christensen Institute for
Disruptive Innovation, a non-profit think tank, and he
serves as a principal consultant for Entangled Solutions,
which offers innovation services to higher education
institutions. Horn is the author and coauthor of mul-
tiple books, white papers, and articles on education,
including the award-winning book Disrupting Class:
How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the
World Learns and the Amazon-bestseller Blended:
Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools.