Webucation

Dr Ken Robinson is a leading force in the development of creativity and in this video he expounds on the issue of creativity and the education system and his view that the education system may well drive out the skills that we will come to depend on in the future. His wit and engaging approach is used with skill to draw you in while he weaves a compelling argument to challenge our current approach in formal education. He promotes his strongly held views that creativity needs to be nurtured and not undermined by the education system.

In a previous post on this blog I described the work of Daniel Pink and his arguments regarding the way our education system seems to give preference to developing left brain thinking! Dan Pink claimed that the more creative right sided thinking was being stifled in the traditional education system as it does not recognise, value or develop creativity. The argument is well known in education systems that seem to value measuring outcomes in terms of Maths and English SAT results or other forms of formal tests.

In the US, as in the UK, SATS scores and examination results are THE measure and all else seems to fade into insignificance. The name given to the US programme is 'No Child Left Behind', aiming to secure standards for all children by relentlessly focusing on standards of mathematics and literacy - many educators are concerned of what they claim is the bias toward SAT scores and not the equally important development of creativity. Maybe that is why some that I met in Boston in 2007 referred to this programme as 'No Child Left Alive'!

Dave Seddon is headteacher of Baxter College in the Kidderminster area of Worcestershire, UK. When he arrived at the school he faced a huge challenge with a school that was deemed to be failing, had falling student numbers and was in an ageing building that seemed well matched to the then aspiration of the school.

He has turned the school around in a remarkably short time and won the Public Servants of the Year Award in 2006 for his achievement. Dave has very strongly held views about the creation and sustainability of effective learning environments and he set these out in a Powerpoint presentation he made which is now posted on the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust website. The presentation makes clear Dave's' determination to make a difference to the lives of the young people in his care and shows just what an impact he and his new revitalised team has made.

The educational turnaround has been made of of many components, together combining to have a powerful effect on the school. Among the mix of issues was the nature of the building and his efforts to make changes to better reflect the atmosphere and culture to more closely fit with his own vision for the school.

I spoke to Dave about the work he has been doing and some of the challenges he faced and still faces and a podcast of part of our conversation is with this post.

Addition: Dave Seddon was awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) by the Queen in her 2013 Birthday Honours list for services to Education.

Thomas Deacon Academy in Peterborough UK was one of the buildings created to demonstrate an entirely new approach to the design of schools as part of the UK's Building Schools for the Future programme. The design, brainchild of the well known designer Norman Foster, is certainly nothing like any school I have been to before. The Foster and Partners business has been responsible for some of the most celebrated designs world wide.

The Academy is actually an amalgam of three previous schools to create a school of over 2000 students aged 11 to 18. I visited the school during a typical school day the fact that 2000 pupils were are work there was pretty difficult to believe as the place was not overcrowded, nor were corridors overflowing with the rush of bodies between lessons. First Myth exploded for me was that a school has to look like the schools we all attended.

As with any design there were issues that could have been addressed slightly differently e.g that classrooms were a little smaller than you night ideally want, but they were bright inviting places geared to focused work. Very few straight walls in the design which is often frowned on by teachers as not being suitable for standard classroom use - but these are not standard classrooms with fill glass walls on the interior making classroom activity visible to anyone passing. Two further myths exploded for me were that you have to have rectangular rooms and that working in classrooms that are open for all peer into.

Again this might put some people off claiming that students would be distracted by things going on outside the classroom. I was pretty impressed to see a group of students sitting chatting and laughing outside one of the classrooms sitting on a settee with students inside the room not taking a jot of notice - the novelty had obviously long worn off.

Another exploded myth is that they use thin client systems throughout the school, 1,100 terminals for a school population of 2,200 students! The technical team reported that they were reliable - suffered from some glitches as with any system and had been delivering everything that the students and teachers wanted. There are some fat clients for use with CAD/CAM or some other specific curriculum tasks but everything else is delivered through thin clients.

The concept of floors seems to vanish as although there are levels there are also structures that defy the normal idea of floors - the library is built above the dual lecture theatre but that is buried into the ground so the layout looks very different from what you would normally expect.

All in all the school opens a whole new set of ideas around the notion of what a school should look like - not surprisingly the students seem to love it.

What do we mean by quality indicators when thinking about building a new school.                                                                            

The following information was provided as part of the UK's BECTa Agency work for UK government. Becta was disbanded in 2010. The links below have been updated to archive copies of materials which are still perfectly valid documents

There are loads of examples of innovative design on web site, in magazines and presentations - how did those come into being? In the majority of cases where good design can be identified the designers and architects have spent time working with the owners or users of a building to convert their vision into reality.

The fact that there are so many bad designs around would suggest that something has gone badly wrong in such cases. In the case of schools might this be because the users are used to their current buildings and can only envisage a better version or that the designers and architects are unable to convert the requirements into suitable designs? Not sure- but whatever the reason there is a desperate need to spend a long time thinking about alternatives and testing our existing thinking around school design before any real planning begins.

The fact that so many kids are not turned on to schools would suggest that what has become the 'standard' school designs are no longer fit for purpose. As an aid to thinking the issues through there is a useful resource at the School Design Research Studio by one Jeffery A. Lackney from the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has produced a paper entitled 33 Principles of Educational Design. The paper provides some real food for thought when considering the design of any new school.

If these principles should contribute to the creation of a vision for new accommodation or be a stimulus to thinking about what outcomes are required for any building programme then perhaps these slides illustrate the results of such thinking.

In the UK some local authorities are working flat out to come up with designs for schools that will stand the test of time for the next thirty years. The UK government's Building Schools for the Future programme set out in 2003 with the grand vision to replace the secondary school stock throughout England over a fifteen year period.

Similar programmes are underway in other countries. Ask different people what the key characteristics of such schools will be and there are as many views as there are learners that will attend these schools.

It is clear that a single characteristic or feature is unlikely to dominate but there might well be a small number of vital ones - use the poll below to choose the three that appear to be the most important to you.

Schools have not changed much in their appearance for a hundred years or more.


The Futurlab publication 'Re thinking learning spaces' provides a useful tool to explore the issues surrounding changing the nature of the formal school experience in terms of the accommodation needed along with the training of staff and the structure of the curriculum.


I have used the materials in a number of situations to engender a debate about creating fit for purpose in the 21st Century. The sessions have ranged from groups of headteachers through to newly qualified teachers and they each bring a new perspective in the issues surrounding school design.

More work needs to be done and the next group will involve learners - a critical perspective in any rethinking of formal schooling. The issues faced by headteachers are many and varied but key in UK schools, and I guess all other schools world wide, is to ensure that the standards are maintained against whatever measures exist in the particular country or state. At the same time everyone recognises that the needs of young people are changing and that traditional curriculum may not fit the bill.

In my work with headteachers they were asked to work in groups to discuss a series of What if.... statements such as; What if school was optional or What if classrooms had more adults present. They were asked to indicate which of these were achievable with little or no change to accommodation, training or curriculum, which required changes to one or more and which they felt had little to do with the formal school system.

The results (results in SVG format and as pdf file) were very interesting and demonstrated that much can be achieved if only there is the will to do it - one of the most critical issues is staff development as much of what is desired depends on changing the ways we work. The comments arising from discussions were also collated and summerised.

Interesting that in some other research that has been done the amounts of funding allocated to training staff are a tiny percentage of the overall budgets in the majority of schools!

Curriculum change is something that education has been dealing with for hundreds of years and the history of education is littered with theories, ideas, claims and even legislation.

Talking to educators during a recent visit to the USA and discussing the failure of the UK education system to remain meaningful to a growing number of learners would suggest that change is in the air across the western world. What was regarded as the skills and aptitudes needed for the industrial age and more recently the information age seem to be under detailed scrutiny in a number of countries.

In the UK the debate has been accelerating in pace for some time, with efforts to develop a more personalised approach to learning and the consequences that result from tailoring the curriculum to more individual need.

The RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce) Opening Minds initiative set out to encourage the introduction of systemic change within the UK national curriculum and proposed a new competence-based curriculum. It seeks to re balance the information based national curriculum and draw in those competencies that are necessary for the 21st Century. The competencies are:

• Competences for Learning
• Competences for Citizenship
• Competences for Relating to People
• Competences for Managing Situations
• Competences for Managing Information

The initiative is being taken up by a growing number of schools in the UK - keeping one eye on the pressure on them to maintain their examination status in league tables but recognising the need for changes which meet the needs of the learners in their care.

In July 2007 the national awarding body QCA made the announced of changes to the formal secondary curriculum to reduce the prescription that existed previously to allow teachers and schools the freedom to innovate. Opening Minds, changes to the statutory curriculum and other programmes for curriculum innovation are clear indicators that we are in a continually changing curriculum landscape - exciting times.

This e-book explores Learning Spaces from the perspective of effective learning and how learner expectations may influence their development.

It also covers the roll of learning technologies in bringing together different groups of people and specialisms all of whom can impact on the learner and the learning that takes place. While the e-book looks at learning spaces other than Primary and high schools a lot of the basic ideas apply and the discussion surrounding the desire to create more flexible spaces, both the physical and virtual ones, is of real value.

There is useful debate about formal and informal physical spaces and the importance of striking the correct balance to create the 'correct' environments for learning. The book opens up the debate about the role of technology as part of the mix and suggests that while learners are have more access to technology and they are comfortable using it many are still not proficient. This presents real issues for those schools and other educational organisations that see e-learning as a key component of personalisation.

The many VLE type products out there may provide alternative routes but the assumption that students can use them straight off and value the experience is open to question. The book also explores the issues surrounding the notion of community and identifies some of the ways in which a well designed virtual learning space can contribute to the development of an effective learning environment. The full e-book (173kb) can be accessed on the main site which also contains a number of case studies and the book broken down by chapters.

Until 2006 the UK never had an entry into the International ThinkQuest Competition. Thinkquest is a competition but one that is almost unique in the world. Students are asked to create web sites covering topics that interest them.

They work in teams, sometimes from across the world and collaborate to create these sites drawing on any expertise they can locate. The sites are totally student created with an adult to act as mentor or guide.

I promoted ThinkQuest to an online community within an e-learning project known as the Virtual Workspace not knowing how students would react. Two teams appeared out of the ether with students drawing in potential team members from within the 18 thousand or so learners within the community. Lee's team had a number of challenges to overcome in the six month journey for the project. They completed the work and ended up publishing a site on Nanotechnology which is now in the competition library. The team that put the project together were from totally different schools. They never met until they went on a trip to London paid for by Oracle, sponsors of the ThinkQuest competition.

On the coach journey back they began planning their 2007 entry which won the 14 to 19 category in the UK version of the ThinkQuest competition having chosen the topic - Water.

The potential of online communities and that of project based learning really came home to me as a result of this work but don't listen to me listen to Lee on the ThinkQuest Podcast.

I attended a workshop run by Bob Pearlman at the BLC07 Conference in Boston during July and what he had to say still resonates with me weeks later as I write this entry.

Bob posed two questions for the session:

What kind of learning and teaching is appropriate for students of the 21st Century?

What kind of learning environments and facilities will support and enhance the education of today’s and tomorrow’s students?

Bob is clear on the key requirements of a 21st Century curriclum and describes the characteristics of such a curriculum in numerous publications - the most useful for me was the one entitled 'Educational Leadership' on the ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) website. ASCD is a community from across the world exploring all aspects of the education process. Bob's article can be found here.

Much of what he says is familiar to educators in the UK as we attempt to define personalised learning but in Bob's case he has practical experience of schools where this has been done. His presentation from the BLC07 conference can be found here.

Bob emailed me on 13th August 07 to discuss some aspects of design and provided an additional useful input to the discussion which is an interview he did and which is posted on the DesignShare web site. It provides a very useful context for discussions with designers and others on thinking through what school design needs to achieve.

Joinedupdesignforschools

This book, produced as the result of a series of projects run with young people in 60 schools, is a really fascinating journey through a design process.

Youngsters working with designers and as designers were able to influence the designs of everything from the appearance of learning spaces to the design of school uniforms.

The experience (thats what the book feels like) of accompanying their journey makes great reading and is great for anyone who wants to rethink the spaces we teach our kids in.


The Sorrel Foundation Site
http://www.thesorrellfoundation.com/v&a.html

The Innovations Unit - useful additional information
http://www.innovation-unit.co.uk/projects/third-party-projects/joinedupdesignforschools.html

The V&A Web Report
http://www.vam.ac.uk/school_stdnts/schools_teach/programmes/previous_events/joinedup/index.html