Planning and Designing Education Facilities in the Knowledge Age

1. Planning and Designing Education Facilities in the Knowledge Age The Need for a Total Redesign of Decision-Making Processes

2. Features of ‘Good’ Performance • Facilities provided will: • not only support education delivery but will also enhance learning outcomes, • be responsive through time to the changing needs of society and education, and • represent an effective and efficient utilisation of all resources available.

3. Part 1 The Link Between Facility Decisions, Education and Societal Trends

4. The Design and Planning of Education Facilities • Is a product of a complex process that involves: • A range disciplines - often with competing priorities. • Consideration of a range of factors • that are not always complimentary • that are often interrelated • and change through time

5. Decision-Making Considerations

6. Society • Rural-based, extended family,wealthy elite, autocratic government • Education • informal education dominant (apprenticeship to craftsmen), • formalised institutions supplied for the elite, • early schools focused on the 3Rs and were multi-age The Agrarian Period - prior to the 1890s Facilities The Wealthy The public edifice (the Grammar School) Rural Areas One room schoolhouse Simple furnishings

7. Societal Patterns • Farm to factory shift • Nuclear family • Paternalistic government • Standardisation and centralisation • Fascination with bigness & synchronisation The Industrial Age - prior to 1970s The Education System • institutionalised learning & compulsory schooling • emphasis on ‘usefulness’ of what was taught • covert curriculum of obedience and conformity

8. Education Considerations vs. Financial Considerations The Early Knowledge Age - An Era of Tension (Quality vs Quantity) • Society • Rapid Change • Demise of the nuclear family • ICT • Globalisation • Education • Emphasis on the ‘individual’ and ‘whole-child’ - social values • Process rather than content - to provide skills for the future. • Expansion of curriculum

9. The ResponseA model grounded in the Industrial Age concepts of Uniformity & Conformity • The use of parameters/standards • -maximum/minimum sizes • -area per student • -area per functional space • -type of spaces provided • the ‘Space Schedule’ • And we continue to tinker with this.

10. It no longer works - emerging societal and educational trends are not supported…...

11. Part 2: The Emerging Trends What Our Decision-Making Systems Must Cater for if they are to: support education be responsive to the future represent effective use of resources

12. Societal Patterns • Economic Changes - a threat to the ‘nation-state’ • Rapid changes in information and communication technologies • Accountability to the ‘shareholder’ • Globalisation - Gaining the Competitive Edge • Integration - the team approach • Emphasis on the ‘consumer-society’ • Knowledge & Innovation is paramount to success

13. Social Changes • Diversity - in Family Structure, Ethnicity & Beliefs • Emphasis on Community - to address social and economic ills • Work is less permanent - flexible hours, contract employment, casual, telecommuting • Sustainability - Economic & Environmental • The growth of the aged population

14. Responses in Education • Lifelong Learning - Education is an economic & social necessity • Education no longer corresponds to chronological ages

15. Accountability & Decentralisation • to the community and the taxpayer • Recognition of Diversity One-size / one model does not fit all

16. Some Education Facility Responses:

17. Integration of Schools and Community Source: Brubaker, 1998, p. 185

18. A variety of possibilities: • Full Service Schools • Schools as Community Centres • Learning Communities • School Without Walls

19. Some Implications: The relationships generated demand a rethink of some fundamental issues: • Locational considerations concerning siting of facilities (on and off-site facilities) within the community. • Site requirements (associated with the extent to which the site will deliver fewer or more services). • Access and security issues. • Relationships between facilities provided on site, in order to ensure access and synergies between services are maximised. • Issues regarding management and governance.

20. School-Business Partnerships • Sponsorship • For-Profit Private Sector Involvement

21. Some implications • Emergence of non-built solutions - an entire new system, with new considerations. • Interconnectivity between the education facility system and other sub-systems of education. • Issues of equity

22. Accountability & Decentralisation- Diversity- • School-based Decision-Making • Parental Choice • Open Enrolment Policies

23. Alternative Models of Schools • Special purpose schools - alternative schools, magnet schools, schools of excellence • Schools that are based on alternative operating structures based on pedagogical approaches • Independent ‘Public’ schools • Schools that operate alternative timetabling structures - year round schooling, block scheduling and extended school days.

24. An Example of an Innovative Timetabling Structure • Kaunani School, a K-12 private school in Hawaii operates on a six-day timetabling cycle. • Teachers are assigned a certain number of contact hours per day. How teachers organise their day is their responsibility; as long as they meet student contact hour requirements. • Teachers generally work together to develop schedules that includes a combination of small discussion groups, longer laboratory sessions, larger group lectures, or other sessions that are appropriate for the specific course. • For example:English teachers are required to teach 85 student-contact hours a day. This can be comprised of five one-hour classes of 17 students, or one one-hour lecture of 85 students, or any combination.

25. Some Implications For Schools: • Each site requires an individual assessment to determine the appropriate quantity and quality of spaces provided to support the education program. For education systems: • how to effectively plan (in physical and financial terms) for provision of a diverse range of education delivery models, generated at the school and community level, which have the potential to increase imposts at the systemic level. • How to manage ‘movement’ between schools as a consequence of choice.

26. Education Pedagogies • New learning theories and pedagogies have emerged as a result of new research findings • Multiple Intelligence Theory • Cooperative Learning • Brain-based Learning • Constructivism

27. Common themes • The individual is the focus of the learning process ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL • The teacher is the facilitator of learning

28. Some Implications • Traditional classroom designs are challenged in terms of: • size • configuration • functionality

29. To Summarise….. • Planning and designing the ‘school’ of today…and tomorrow has become EXTREMELY complex….. And • The ‘decision-making’ system that dominates no longer works……it is not responsive to societal or education trends

31. We can no longer replicate • Each school requires thorough planning processes that reflects the educational, operational and financial vision of the school community

32. Part 3 A New System for Decision-Making

33. The Fundamental Problem Society - the Education System - Education Facilities - are in a state of imbalance

34. This Imbalance Needs Redressing - otherwise we may build facilities that do not represent effective use of resources nor will they necessarily support education in the future

35. The Answer The system and its parts should be designed from the perspective of the whole system and in view of its embeddedness in its environment. The systems design notion requires both coordination and integration. We need to design all parts operating at a specific system level of the organisation interactively and simultaneously. This requires coordination. The requirement of designing for the interdependency invites integration. (Banathy, 1993, p.13) A Process focused on: • Integration • Coordination • Cooperation

36. An Integrated Planning Approach • Based on a reconceptualisation of the role and place of facilities within the education system. • Facilities need to be an ‘integral’ component of education planning - not a separate system - which is considered as part of a ‘facility master planning process’ or when a ‘facility need’ is identified

37. Where... • The interconnectivity and interdependencies between all components of the education system - curriculum, financial, human resourcing & facilities - and with other complimentary systems are acknowledged. • Decision-making is education focused and occurs at the local level: • Involving school, parents, students, community, business and public agency representatives. • Who access advice - from a range of experts which include facility planners, human resource personnel, financial experts etc.

38. Where • In the education system environment: • government sets: • performance standards • establishes parameters that support maximum flexibility of decisions at the site level • monitors parameters that guide local decisions, to ensure capacity exists to support the system

39. It will be difficult to achieve…. there are barriers to overcome…and it will take time... It is possible though….

40. Education and Professional Development About... • The issues society faces in the Knowledge Age • The Education Facility System for: • Educators • Policy-makers • Business & the Wider Community • The Education System (and sub-system linkages) for: • Educators • Architects • Facility Planners • Bureaucrats

41. School operational practices for: • Architects • Facility Planners • Bureaucrats • Research that indicates facilities can enhance learning outcomes - for: • All

42. And….we need to think a bit differently... • A cost per student as the parameter for decision-making • Development of Decision Support Systems (DSS) to support ‘integrated’ planning across all sub-systems. • Area planning overlaying school planning, with areas determining priorities for expenditure of bulk allocation - ostensibly for capital- but not necessarily needed to be used for physical assets.

43. Until such time as we develop such a new decision-making system it is unlikely that the educational facilities we plan and design will ‘perform’ by: • representing the most effective learning environments for users • responding to societal and education trends • representing the most effective utilisation of all resources, not just physical assets available to a school.