What counts as an innovative learning environment?€¦ · What counts as an innovative learning environment? Societal expectations, educational policy and practice outcomes 22 February

Whatcountsasaninnovativelearningenvironment?Societal expectations, educational policy and practice outcomes

22 February 2018

Whatcountsasaninnovativelearningenvironment?Societalexpectations,educationalpolicyandpracticeoutcomes

Pamela Woolner Research Centre for

Learning and Teaching Newcastle

University, UK

Spottheinnovation…

• What counts as an ILE will depend on time and place – the society within which it is located

• Schools inevitably reflect the society they serve and therefore changing their assumptions and values will be linked to re-assessment within the wider society (Lowe, 2007).

322 February 2018 Talking Spaces 8: Geographies, Societies, Practices Monkfrith School, Herts, 1949-50 (Saint, 1987: 87)

WhatcountsasanILE..?

Primary School (ages 6-15), Reykjavik, Iceland, 2005

Primary School (ages 4-11), Hartlepool, NE England, 2011


Primary School (ages 4-11), Hartlepool, NE England, 2011

Primary School (ages 6-11), South Tyrol, N Italy, 2009


http://www.tattenhallhistory.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Tattenhall-The-Park-County-Primary-School.pdf

Impington Village College Cambridgeshire, 1938-40

Templewood Primary School, Welwyn Garden City (1949-50)

CLASP school, Milan Triennale, 1960

http://www.tattenhallhistory.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Tattenhall-The-Park-County-Primary-School.pdf

initiation ››› implementation ››› institutionalisation (Fullan 2007)

Changeinschoolsishard…

722 February 2018 Talking Spaces 8: Geographies, Societies, Practices

‘institutionalization’ of an initiative can take 2-4 years for ‘moderately complex changes’;larger scale school change might take as long as 5 to 10 years

(Fullan, 2007: 68)

‘Whole school change is elusive in practice and in the literatures’(Thomson 2007:10)

Iseducationresistanttochange..?


• The ‘structural conservatism of education institutions’ is part of their role in transmitting knowledge and culture from generation to generation

(Young & Muller, 2010: 15)

• ‘there are too many imperatives that require “delivery”, too much that demands coverage, too little that provides the enabling condition for us to be quiet and attentive in ways that make exploration or creativity a real possibility’ (Fielding 2001:103)

• ‘Pupils’ definitions of school and classroom behaviour can be powerful conservative forces in educational practice’ (Rudduck, 1980: 142)

‘The fable … in which the nineteenth-century surgeon would not recognise the twenty-first-century operating theatre, in contrast to the nineteenth-century teacher who would know how to operate in a twentyfirst- century school, misses the point. Nobody would think it strange that a mother from the nineteenth century would recognise the intimate relationship between a mother and baby in the twenty-first century.’ (Sutherland et al., 2014: 35)

…becauseit’sbasedonhumanrelationships…?


Open plan design often challenges existing school relationships

• Change happens at both practice and policy level (but sometimes not coordinated…)

• School environments have changed over time

• Educational innovation is (sometimes) reflected in the physical

…‘changedoes occur’(Priestleyetal.2011:267)


• Change proceeds through facilitators and constraints

(Priestley 2011)

CreatingILEs


culture

structure

agency

Policy,schoolspaceandinnovation– recentUKexperience


Building Schools for the Future, BSF (2003 to 2010)• explicitly aimed at ‘transforming’ education (DfES, 2002: 3)• embraced participation through ‘proper consultation with the staff and pupils of the

school and the wider community’ (DfES, 2002: 63) to achieve a design tailored to the needs of that school

ILE?


• ‘we were unable to find any coherent definition of what was meant by “Educational Transformation”…The Review team were troubled by this lack of coherence or guidance around this central objective’

• ‘Staff and pupils in BSF schools had an unusually high level of input in the design process. The Review team were troubled by elements of this involvement’.

Policy,schoolspaceandinnovation– recentUKexperience


Priority School Building Programme, PSBP (current) as based on recommendations of the James Review (2011):

ILE?


SuccessfulILE…?


Jesmond Gardens Primary School, Hartlepool

Opened 2011; 360 students (3–11 years old). Designed through participatory process with staff, students and head who “knew what I wanted”

Student milieu

Staff culture

Ecology / Physical design

Organisation

(Gislason, 2010)Cardellino & Woolner (forthcoming)

CreatingandsustainingthisILE


culture

structure

agency

CreatingandsustainingthisILE


culture

structure

agency

BSF era -participatory design

performativity

flexible spaces

school ethos

head teacherstaff

‘Where the change extends to school culture and facilitates non-conflicting individual agency, then the physical environment appears to be key’ (Woolner et al., 2018)

WhatcountsasanILE?Societalexpectations,educationalpolicy

andpracticeoutcomes

‘those who seek to influence primary education – albeit by seeking buildings designed to facilitate preferred patterns of use – are involved in politics, for they are involved in attempting to shape or reform the future’

(Cooper, 1982: 43)

References


Cooper, I. (1982) Design and use of British primary schools: an examination of government-endorsed advice, Design Studies, 3(1): 37-44.

DfES (2002). Schools for the Future: Designs for Learning Communities Building Bulletin 95. London: TSO.

Fielding, M. (2001) Beyond the Rhetoric of Student Voice FORUM 43 (2): 100-109.

Fullan, M. (2007). The New Meaning of Educational Change(4th Ed) New York/Abingdon: Routledge.

Gislason, N. (2010). Architectural design and learning environment: a framework for school design research, Learning Environment Research, 13(2): 127-145.

James, S. (2011) Review of Education Capital. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/review-of-education-capital

Lowe, R. (2007) The death of progressive education :how teachers lost control of the classroom, London: Routledge.

Priestley, M., Millera, K., Barrettb, L., & Wallacec, C. (2011). Teacher learning communities and educational change in Scotland: The Highland experience. British Educational Research Journal, 37(2): 265–284.

Rudduck, J. (1980) Insights into the Process of Dissemination British Educational Research Journal 6(2):139-146

Saint, A. (1987). Towards a Social Architecture. Avon: Bath Press.

Sigurðardóttir, A.N. and Hjartarson, T. (2016). The idea and reality of an innovative school: From inventive design to established practice in a new school building. Improving Schools, 19(1): 62-79.

Sutherland, R., Sutherland, J., Fellner, C., Siccolo, M. and Clark, L. (2014) Schools for the future: subtle shift or seismic change?, Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 23(1): 19-37.

Thomson, P.(2007) Whole School Change: a review of the literature London: Creative Partnerships

Woolner P, Thomas U, and Tiplady L. (2018) Structural change from physical foundations: the role of the environment in enacting school change. Journal of Educational Change DOI 10.1007/s10833-018-9317-4

Young, M & Muller, J. (2010) Three Educational Scenarios for the Future: lessons from the sociology of knowledge European Journal of Education 45(1): 11-27.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/review-of-education-capital

Thank you

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What counts as an innovative learning environment?€¦ · What counts as an innovative learning environment? Societal expectations, educational policy and practice outcomes 22 February