Knowledge
What will future classrooms look like?
Various researches have shown that due to the fluid nature of learning methodologies and learning spaces. The future of classrooms would mean adaptive layouts coupled with technology that would allow collaborations across the globe.
The Physical Space
Almost all of us have picked up our basic schooling in classrooms where the teacher’s desk sits at the front of the classroom and students’ desks are aligned in a grid. The logic behind such an arrangement was that an instructional mode of teaching was followed where the teacher taught by giving instructions to the students.
However, newer learning technologies and pedagogies are mandating to change the physical environments of our classrooms. So far, very little research has gone into the role of physical environment in the learning process” but more and more educationists are offering different perspectives. However, one thing is amply clear, the current classrooms are not equipped to facilitate 21st century learning.
A rare study on learning spaces by the Herman Miller Company (2011) on adaptable spaces and their impact on learning identified 4 key factors that affect student learning; Basic Human Need, Teaching, Learning, and Engagement.
It concluded that classrooms are tending towards adaptable learning spaces as they allowed for better student engagement by allowing quick and easy configuration of classrooms. Students who attended classes held in classrooms designed around adoptable spaces reported being 24% more engaged in class and 23% more likely to feel that communication was better facilitated while teachers described how it was easier to integrate teaching methods (22%), easier to use technology while instructing. The figures below are also taken from the study and show just how effective adaptable spaces are.
The Pedagogical Place
” Classrooms of the future will no longer be little factories where we “can find teachers encouraged (and often compelled) to mass produce learning and marginalize the differences in aptitudes, interests, and abilities” which no longer “prepare students for the fast changing global society they will inherit” (Fielding, Lackney, Nair, 2011).
Nothing summarises the changes in the pedagogical approach of the learning space than the quote above. Besides the changing physical layout of the classroom, even the tools of instruction will undergo a sea of change. As Heather Edick asserts “technology will become increasingly sophisticated which will bring with it the benefits of better resource management.
The ultimate change will be the emphasis placed on learning models that would encourage active construction of knowledge and constructs rather than relying on instructional models.
Here is an amazing example that explains the true potential of changing technologies. The future classrooms will take collaboration and community thinking beyond the classroom and into the real world. For instance, Students could learn Chinese “using a large HD monitor and sound system and a web connection[and instructors] could conduct virtual field trips once a month, using a wen camera that shows students sites, such as the Wall of China” while also allowing them to practice their Chinese with native speakers (Edick, Visions of the).
The classroom of the future might also be completely paper-free as laptops and other educational technology will take its place. A time will come when teachers will simply mail classnotes, homework and home tests to students devices. These devices will include textbooks thus eliminating the need for heavy backpacks and lockers.
The classroom of the future is a very fluid space, both physically and pedagogically. The physical spaces which make up the classroom, the educational technologies we use, and the teaching pedagogy we used today to are not static and as educators it is critical for use to continue learning about what the classroom of the future will look like. No matter what state or country we teach in these changes will affect us all. As Makitalo-Siegal (2010) assert “teachers themselves should be more open to new pedagogical models and the development of technology as well as be willing to regularly update their knowledge by participating in in-service education and reading current research literature”
