Five Keys to Developing Strong Interactive Learning Environments

Columbia College, Image © Gensler

Modern campus life is evolving to align with a rapidly changing workplace. Dorms are no longer bunkbeds and shared kitchens, but rather extensions of the learning environment, with spaces meant to encourage collaboration and cross-pollination. The expectations of these living/learning environments have radically shifted in recent years. Academia is also seeing major shifts as the walled, one-directional, sage-on-stage pedagogy that has driven classroom design for so long has become outdated as a mode of communication for teachers and students.

The workplace we are graduating students into is no longer an endless sea of five-foot-tall eight-foot by eight-foot cubicles. Graduates are expecting to collaborate and “hotel” in their work environment. At work, they write on every surface—glass and writable walls and table-tops—and while punching keys at their keyboard, they sit and stand at adjustable-height workstations.  Many don’t have a desk phone, instead taking text messages and an occasional phone call through their cell phone or VOIP. High-performing companies are the ones that give their employees choice, and the most innovative ones exercise that choice by working from different environments—the café, on the rooftop or in a conference room.

So why should the classroom still conjure up images of tablet arm chairs arranged neatly in rows, facing the backs of professors scribbling formulas on a chalk board? Non-traditional pedagogy requires non-traditional learning spaces. What we are witnessing in learning environments is a broad shift—a shattering of the perceived norms.

Criss-crossing the nation through high schools and universities is a redefinition of learning. The realization that learning happens anywhere—not just within the classroom, but in living spaces, communal spaces and everywhere in between.  As a result, the classroom environment is getting a refresh.

Dwight-Engelwood School Hajjar STEM Center, Image © Gensler

Top 5 Innovations in Learning Environments

1. Omni-Directional Learning Environments: Gone are the days of flip chair sleds and teaching surfaces bolted to the floor.  Floor-to-ceiling writable surfaces on all walls, multiple projectors and flexible chairs allow the classroom to pivot at a moment’s notice.  Research has found that the absence of preconceived space utilization opens the mind to problem solving.  Remember the three-foot by six-foot chalk-board with the metal rail on the bottom at 42 inches above the floor?  When you walked in, you immediately knew how to use it. When you ran out of space, you were done, or you moved onto another chalk-board.  Today’s classroom of writable surfaces allows for a free flow of ideas. When you run out of space you simply write above the current words, or arrow through to a different area of the room.  This is a powerful component of collaboration . . .
2. Podiums are Passé: Podiums underscore a front to the classroom. Regardless of all of the other advances listed below, if you have a podium in the classroom the teacher will default to standard operating procedures.  We have seen successful integration into a hospital-style wall kiosk—where the professor can place a laptop or plug in their thumb drive and then use a wireless remote to stroll around the classroom.  We have also seen complete digital interface through ipads—eliminating the need for any sort of a computer dock, because, as one school put it, even the plug coming out of the wall in one location suggests a place where the teacher is going to sit.
3. Low tech is high tech: Today’s digital technology de-emphasizes the one projector or jumbo tv screen at the front of the classroom and enhances the student-to-student digital screens that they bring to class. Additionally, we can use short-throw projectors on a non-reflective writable surface—essentially converting the writable surface into a projection surface. Ten years ago, the classroom of the future would have been decked out in $100k of technology that you would need a PhD to operate from a massive podium. Today it resembles what you would see in many fortune 500 company conference rooms—writable surfaces and technology that is hidden or mobile, and secondary, putting human interaction at the forefront.


MATTER, Image © Gensler

4. Flexible Furniture: Educators are expecting a balance of discussion and collaboration. We have repeatedly found that the typical 2 chairs sharing a seminar table is not going to cut it.  Many schools are going back to Tablet Arm chairs on casters—but not your parents’ sloped wood top. These tablets are large enough to embrace digital and analogue papers at the same time. It’s clear that active learning environments require active and flexible furniture.
5. Bigger is better: At early planning stages, the code-required exiting of twenty-square-foot per person isn’t enough. This was based on classroom function decades ago—when the chairs were probably bolted to the floor.  Flexible just needs more space. This is a challenge with performance metrics tied to square foot per student or credit hour, but it is a fact. An active learning environment requires more space to accommodate moving furniture, classroom settings and break-out spaces. There are creative ways to handle this; however, it could mean doubling the standard square footage.

All of these innovations, when tied together in a fashion that is unique to your institution, result in a hackable learning environment:  A place that is not statically defined, but is rather a vehicle for the free flow of ideas and the transfer of knowledge, and where the instructor guides the conversation and inserts knowledge along the way.

David Broz co-leads Gensler’s education and culture practice. He uses a research-based approach to design educational environments in response to today’s digital-native students. His conversations with administrators, professors, and futurists have led him to publish several studies that show how space can support learning and transform the overall campus experience. Contact him at david_broz@gensler.com.