McGraw-Hill Research Foundation Position Paper Urges Re-Evaluation of Classroom Space to Better Support 21st Century Learning

NEW YORK, Oct. 27, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Walk into just about any elementary or high school classroom today and you're likely to encounter the same  "factory-like" environment your parents, grandparents and great grandparents experienced when they were students. You'll see the same bland and uninspiring colors of the walls and furnishings, the glaring lighting, and the rows of desks and chairs facing the front of the room. Although this basic layout has survived for centuries, there is a disconnect between the classroom's physical design and the advanced educational theory, practice and technology that defines teaching and learning today.

In a position paper released today by The McGraw-Hill Research Foundation, "Reimagining the Classroom: Opportunities to Link Recent Advances in Pedagogy to Physical Settings," Alessandro De Gregori, a research architect and consultant for the Center for Building Knowledge at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, contends that in order to effectively optimize teaching and learning, the physical design of the classroom should and can be manipulated to meet the growing needs of teachers and students.

"It is clear that educators, students and even designers take the physical classroom space completely for granted," said De Gregori. "Especially today, as digital technology rapidly becomes an integral part of modern instruction, we have more of an opportunity than ever before to re-structure and 're-imagine' the classroom space so that teachers can better support their teaching strategies." A dialogue that has practically ceased to exist until now, De Gregori seeks to give this long-overlooked issue greater prominence by:

• Presenting three case studies on schools where the physical environment has been purposely designed to facilitate unique pedagogical models with marked success;  
• Reflecting on why the potential for using a classroom's physical setting to optimize its teaching model has not been studied more rigorously; and
• Considering what can be done to enhance the knowledge base in this unexplored yet vital area of study.

Demonstrating that the classroom environment can play an active role in supporting and enhancing both teachers and students, De Gregori looks at three different schools – The Crow Island School in Winnetka, Ill., Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, N.H., and  The Discovery Charter School in Newark, N.J. – that have strategically designed classrooms specific to their instructional models. By re-organizing a classroom structure to allow flexible, creative, integrated learning, teachers can encourage and implement strategies that align with their teaching goals: enhancing learning and increasing success.

De Gregori acknowledges that there can be challenges to implementing classroom design changes, but he urges educators to consider how the physical learning environment can impact academic achievement. "The time for exploring rich opportunities for using the physical environment to enhance teaching and learning is long overdue," he says. "Or perhaps, within the current revolutions in technology, social networking, gaming, distance learning and many others throughout society, the perfect time has finally come." For example, De Gregori reviews the impact of new approaches to the physical settings on the effectiveness of digital technologies in contemporary classroom environments addressing cooperative learning.

To download a copy of "Reimagining the Classroom: Opportunities to Link Recent Advances in Pedagogy to Physical Settings" by Alessandro De Gregori, visit http://bit.ly/ReimaginingtheClassroomWhitePaper.

About The McGraw-Hill Research Foundation

The Foundation was established with the support of The McGraw-Hill Companies. It was incorporated on July 16, 2010, as a Delaware non-profit and is in the process of applying to the Internal Revenue Service for tax-exempt status as a 501(c)(3) organization. Additional information is available at http://www.mcgraw-hillresearchfoundation.org/. 

Media Contact:
Tom Stanton
McGraw-Hill Education
(212) 904-3214
[email protected]

SOURCE McGraw-Hill Education