Where are students before and after class? New teaching environments look at those transition times as windows of opportunity, and strive to offer opportunities for student-faculty and student-student interaction, as well as personal study. Academic and social interaction play important roles, thus a variety of spaces should be offered.
Hallways adjacent to classrooms can be equipped with individual study furniture, and readily accessible power. Alcoves, carpets and acoustical ceilings create a quiet atmosphere.
Strategically located lounge areas serve small groups as meeting and group study areas, and house vending equipment.
Small group study rooms, acoustically separated from open circulation, complete the range of study areas.
Great examples for classroom buildings with a variety of staging areas are Chandler Gilbert Community College (CCGC) Ironwood Hall and Surprise "Communiversity" by Architekton.
Provided by Spark Architecture
Showing posts with label Education Design. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Education Design. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Paradigms of today's college classrooms.
While a basic specification of a classroom still includes maximum occupancy counts and available technology, teaching and learning methods have moved away from a strict lectern to audience monologue.
Presenters, whether teacher or student, move around the room, pointing at projections on different surfaces, and addressing different groups. With an increased focus on collaboration, student seating rearranges fluently in the course of a single lecture, starting out in traditional classroom layout, breaking out into work groups, and returning to a classroom setting to present their groups results. Individual groups may have dedicated whiteboards-projection surfaces at their disposal. Students or groups can submit questions and input through their tablets. (Ipad and similar). From here, it is only a small step to link off-site students to participate in the same class.
A common mistake is to block all daylight in an attempt to facilitate better projection. While glare has to be carefully controlled by window placement, size, blinds, or switchable skylights, daylight greatly contributes to student alertness. Further, projection technology has improved to function in much brighter settings.
Resources:
Steelcase has developed a number of integrated product solutions for today's Education market ranging from chairs to mulch-media collaboration. http://www.steelcase.com/en/products/category/educational/research/pages/research.aspx
Solatube has developed switchable skylights, that can be dimmed to accommodate a variety of light levels. While Skylights have the potential to greatly enhance lighting quality and reduce long term energy costs, first cost remains a challenge. Code requires to provide sufficient artificial lighting, which makes skylights a common value engineering target. http://www.solatube.com/commercial/daylighting/index.php
www.Spark-Architecture.com
Presenters, whether teacher or student, move around the room, pointing at projections on different surfaces, and addressing different groups. With an increased focus on collaboration, student seating rearranges fluently in the course of a single lecture, starting out in traditional classroom layout, breaking out into work groups, and returning to a classroom setting to present their groups results. Individual groups may have dedicated whiteboards-projection surfaces at their disposal. Students or groups can submit questions and input through their tablets. (Ipad and similar). From here, it is only a small step to link off-site students to participate in the same class.
A common mistake is to block all daylight in an attempt to facilitate better projection. While glare has to be carefully controlled by window placement, size, blinds, or switchable skylights, daylight greatly contributes to student alertness. Further, projection technology has improved to function in much brighter settings.
Resources:
Steelcase has developed a number of integrated product solutions for today's Education market ranging from chairs to mulch-media collaboration. http://www.steelcase.com/en/products/category/educational/research/pages/research.aspx
Solatube has developed switchable skylights, that can be dimmed to accommodate a variety of light levels. While Skylights have the potential to greatly enhance lighting quality and reduce long term energy costs, first cost remains a challenge. Code requires to provide sufficient artificial lighting, which makes skylights a common value engineering target. http://www.solatube.com/commercial/daylighting/index.php
www.Spark-Architecture.com
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