Diana G. Oblinger writes:
Space—whether physical or virtual—can have an impact on learning. It can bring people together; it can encourage exploration, collaboration, and discussion. Or, space can carry an unspoken message of silence and disconnectedness.
The idea of designing a learning space is in my circle of influence and something that I have been working on during the course of this school year. In the video clip below I am going through and highlighting some of the work we have done at our school in an effort to create a place to bring people together. It has been a huge collaborative effort in order to get this far with our Learning Lab and there is still much work to be done.
My principal, Kent Maslin, has been an unyielding support to the teachers at our school and I had a chance to catch up with him and capture some of his thoughts on THE Learning Lab.
The inspiration for this idea came to me after reading David Jakes’ blog post titled Me? Obsessed? where he considered the question “What are the dimensions of a learning space?” However, it was the last part of his post that actually got me out of my chair, into my car, and into school to start a conversation with Kent to get this Learning Space going.
David writes:
Yeah, we will always have classrooms. I get it. But I would encourage you to think bigger, think beyond that typical space to take advantage of every opportunity for learning, and that includes a consideration of how space can impact learning, and what kinds of learning can take place in those spaces. I think that consideration is something that we dismiss too easily, it’s too much of an assumption that we don’t seriously reflect upon.
THE Learning Lab is a long range experiment and we at Tioga Hills are thinking bigger. I am excited to bring you updates on this process so stay tuned!
