Go to school or design college.
1. From "classroom" to "study room", not only the name has changed
School space is the material basis for educational activities to take place, and is the place where children learn, live and grow. Important places, and our understanding of school space includes not only explicit physical spaces such as school buildings, campus landscapes, classrooms, corridors, sports fields, and equipment, but also implicit non-physical spaces such as communication space, thinking space, and imagination space. . Environmental psychology studies from the aspects of psychological comfort, spatial stimulation and inspiring effects of space have shown that physical space can have an impact on human activities from both a psychological and physiological perspective.
Take the classroom space as an example. How to allow students to walk in with expectations every day and continue to actively participate in learning life is the key point that needs to be considered when designing school space. Xingdou Primary School, a subsidiary of Hefei Tunxi Road Primary School Education Group, changed the "classroom" to "study room". It not only changed the name of the classroom, but also the layout and design of the study room space from the perspective of children's learning to explore learning. The room brings changes in the way of teaching and learning, and discovers the impact of learning activities on the learning space.
(1) Designed for learning
Learning is a process in which individuals actively participate in learning. The design concept of the learning room is from supporting teachers to "teach" to supporting students to "learn" transformation. Based on the school’s education goals and value pursuits, the study room is designed as a whole from the perspectives of culture, education, psychology, and design, proactively discovering the intrinsic connection between the learning space and children’s learning, and embodying the functionality, education, and Artistry and flexibility.
We have clarified the design concept of the study room, that is, each study room is built for real learning; each study room can meet the learning needs of teachers and students; each study room It can meet the needs of various learning methods; the study room is the "home" for teachers and students; the study rooms for different subjects are specially designed according to needs. We hope that the feeling the study room brings to students is: the moment "I" step into the study room, I can't help but fall in love with it.
The British Nightingale Architectural Institute and the University of Salford jointly conducted a year-long study of 34 classrooms in 7 primary schools and found that the lighting, temperature, sound, layout and color of the classrooms were The correlation between physical elements and academic performance is as high as 73%. To this end, the design of study rooms for each subject in our school is based on the above physical elements, and strives to provide a comfortable, open, soft, attractive physical environment and complete teaching equipment for children's learning.
After many communications between teachers, students and designers from different disciplines, they considered factors such as color, space shape, lighting, configuration, comfort, etc., and paid attention to all aspects of sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste. sensory experience, and integrate technology and culture into it at the same time to provide maximum support for students' learning.
Our study room has several areas. There is a "self-study area" suitable for students to study independently, with tables and chairs arranged. The tables and chairs in this area can be combined in any way, suitable for students to study cooperatively; there is a "*** school area" suitable for students to sit around the floor and listen to teachers; There is a stage area for students to display their learning achievements; there is a reading area suitable for students' individual study, Internet retrieval, and individual tutoring by teachers; there is also a living area where students place school supplies, wash and drink water. Such divisions satisfy a variety of teaching and learning methods.
Study rooms for different subjects have different styles. For example, the Chinese learning room is characterized as a small library. The reading area has sofas and soft mats to satisfy students' reading pleasure; the height of the tables and chairs in the teaching area is set according to the comfort level of different grade students' writing. The music study room is specially equipped with a wall of mirrors, dance bars and curtains. The floor is made of shock-proof, stable and wear-resistant floor glue. Sound-absorbing panels are installed on the roof and walls of the room. It is equipped with pianos, musical instruments, speakers and special cubes. Stool etc. Some study rooms also have specially set up warm corners of one square meter, which can ensure a certain degree of privacy and meet students' needs for personalized reading, thinking, and mood adjustment. They are affectionately called "mini cabins" by children.
(2) Smart due to learning
The optimized design of the study room has obvious effects on physical and mental pleasure. Children are people who live in a learning space. They obtain information, understand the world, construct and develop themselves through the interaction between their senses and the spatial environment. How the optimized learning room can truly promote students' effective learning and development, so that the learning room is not a "static note" but a "flexible life form", and the resulting changes in teaching and learning methods need to be explored.
Changing "classroom" into "learning room" means putting students' learning and growth at the center when considering teaching. In such a classroom, teachers connect themselves with children, teaching materials with children, one child with other children, and one kind of knowledge with other knowledge, thereby connecting children's present and future. This kind of classroom does not necessarily have a fixed model and structure, but allows students to give full play to their independent initiative in learning and be the masters of learning; it not only teaches students knowledge and skills, but also helps students acquire the core skills that can embrace the future. Literacy.
The placement of items in the study room is not static. Even in the same subject study room, adjustments can be made at any time due to different students entering the study room. The desks in the study room can be placed in rows, assembled into different shapes, or placed individually. The three ways of arranging tables correspond to three different learning styles, and the three learning styles may also exist in one class at the same time. In the same learning space, some students can put on headphones and use electronic devices to study courses or check materials independently; some students sit on the sofa and read quietly; some students can gather at the "communication table" for exchanges and discussions; and Some students can self-test. In a class or a learning process, the teacher will directly face each student in the group, giving full play to the role of the teacher in guiding, inspiring, demonstrating, and monitoring the teaching process, and also fully reflects the participation and initiative of students as learning subjects. , positivity and creativity.
The flexible variability of learning rooms can support blended learning, which is delivered to the “appropriate” learner through the “appropriate” learning technology and the “appropriate” learning style at the “appropriate” time. "Appropriate" abilities to achieve optimal learning results. During the learning process, teachers divide students into smaller groups according to their learning needs to meet students' individual learning needs and make the learning space vital.
Interaction between children is crucial to learning. In addition to themed learning activities and games that are closely related to children's lives, the study room also has their favorite books, plants, small displays, and works exhibitions... They learn independently here, and their curiosity, desire to explore, and good habits can be protected. and cherish.
The study room is based on life, and every corner is full of humanized design, providing teachers and students with more "accidental" opportunities for free interaction and communication between students, between teachers, and between students and teachers. The occasional social activities between teachers and students make people happy physically and mentally and satisfy the spiritual and psychological needs of teachers and students. Children have no fear here and can relax and grow freely. They can feel, experience and comprehend in the real life world of the learning room, and also benefit from the communication and feedback between different learning areas and different classmates. This This kind of free communication is conducive to the healthy development of children's personality.
(3) Make learning everywhere
The quality and effectiveness of learning activities are inseparable from the design and construction of learning spaces, and learning activities themselves are also directly transforming and affecting learning spaces. It can be said that the study room grows together with children's learning and growth. When the study room serves as a teacher's office, a student consultation room, and a children's activity room at the same time, teaching resources are integrated and shared, and students learn naturally when they are in it.
In a diverse and open learning room, teachers and students are all learners. Teachers who are also learners must actively update themselves, regard learning as a way of life, work responsibility and spiritual pursuit, and internalize it into conscious actions. Relying on subject teaching, teachers and students can jointly grasp the learning process and The two will improve together and the two will grow together.
Every child has the right to choose the way of learning and growth, and discover themselves in the rich and diverse campus space.
Children's eyes are cameras and ears are recorders. The environment and things around them will have a profound impact on them. The construction of the study room is to closely integrate the educational goals with children's daily learning and life, so that they can have extensive knowledge, think flexibly and imaginatively about many things, form correct values, learn to choose, and learn Make judgments and learn to flexibly apply knowledge to solve real-life problems.
American poet Whitman wrote in the poem "A Child Walks Ahead": "A child walks forward every day. The first thing he sees, he becomes that thing. , that thing becomes a part of him..." Children's learning not only happens in the study room, but also happens at any time.
2. The "hidden" curriculum in school design
How to design school space?
As an important part of public facilities, the design of schools First of all, it needs to comply with the basic elements such as safety, applicability, economy, and green that are common to general public facilities. On this basis, school design must also follow basic principles such as satisfying the requirements of teaching functions and conducive to the healthy physical and mental growth of students.
With regard to meeting the basic functional requirements for teaching, the "Design Code for Primary and Secondary Schools" has already put forward detailed standards, so there is no need to go into details. How to design a school that is beneficial to students' physical and mental health depends on the designer's understanding of the school.
If the designer understands the school as a place used to enclose students in walls, pack them into classrooms, and instill knowledge into them, then they are essentially designing a standard warehouse to "pack" students. Rather than designing a school. A real school is a "life field" where students can learn effectively, grow freely, and interact happily. The formation of this "life field" originated from the blueprints for building the school.
The role that school space plays in forming a "life field" for the school depends on the number of "curriculum factors" "hidden" in the design. Curriculum is the design and implementation of the purpose, content, and methods of educating people. The school guides and meets the learning needs of students through the special "product" of curriculum services. It can be said that as long as students come to school to study, the curriculum value of the school space will naturally arise. Therefore, if the school space is taken as a whole, the embodiment of its curriculum value is not a question of existence, but a question of adequacy.
The Fangshan Branch of Beijing No. 4 Middle School is such a model. This school entrusts designer Li Hu with many thoughts on education, culture and green ecology. His design is the process of converting these thoughts into "curriculum factors". He wanted students to study and live happily between the countryside and heaven and earth, feel the real nature, and increase their hands-on practical ability in the interaction with nature, so he came up with the wonderful design of placing farmland directly on the roof of the classroom. This design laid the foundation for the growth of the school's natural curriculum. Without such a design, the top floors of the classrooms in this school would be just like most houses, just cement roofs to protect them from wind and rain.
Five years ago, when I participated in the design of the new campus of Wuxi Liyuan Middle School as the principal, I faced the basic question of "what kind of school do we want to build?" and proposed the idea of ??building a "most curriculum" campus. point of view. Obviously, the "most" here does not mean the ultimate, but a special emphasis on the concept of using curriculum concepts to build schools and design spaces. The "most curriculum" campus construction is to allow the limited school space to grow unlimited curriculum value.
In school construction, as a school, we put forward many special needs for school design from a curriculum perspective. For example, we first proposed that the building space should be given over to classrooms as much as possible. The reason is very simple. No matter how beautiful the building is, how advanced the equipment, or how luxurious the lecture hall is, the classroom where students spend most of their time in a day is very cramped. Such a school lacks the "idea" in space planning. The foundation of "student-centered" and the construction of a school "conducive to the healthy physical and mental growth of students" have been greatly compromised. Later, although the classroom area in the new campus of Liyuan Middle School did not reach the 90 square meters we had hoped for, it was still 85 square meters - 15 square meters more than the average standard classroom.
This 15 square meters serves as a comprehensive classroom area, making it possible for students to communicate, read, and have one-to-one tutoring and other activities. Compared with traditional classrooms, it greatly enriches the curriculum functions of the classroom. These course functions are "hidden" in the drawings.
In order to design a school that is suitable for teaching, learning, and living, we organized teachers to conduct dozens of discussions and sorted out hundreds of curriculum design suggestions at both macro and micro levels. For example, a learning plaza is established to provide students with the possibility of providing space and facilities for integrated learning across disciplines, grades, and classes; the platforms on each floor of the school are built into fun sports and game centers; and the unique river running through the school from east to west is fully utilized. Taking advantage of the advantages, establish a water culture base that integrates science and technology, culture, and environmental protection, and where students can truly participate in interaction; take advantage of the natural isolation of the river, open the sports and dining areas in the north of the school to the community during non-teaching hours, and carry out home-school joint education activities ; Integrate the school communication room with the home-school education center; build the school communication room into a base for distributed photovoltaic power generation and meteorological measurement; the interior walls of classes on different floors are of different colors, allowing students to grow each school year; integrate all electrical laboratory The circuit lines are laid out as open lines to make electrical teaching more intuitive and visible; a wall and an elevator in the school are selected for architectural transparency so that students can understand the structure of the wall and elevator; samples of all building materials in the new school are collected and arranged in One wall becomes the best teaching material for materials science; display the tools or pictures used in the construction of the new school to become a "Our Tools" school-based teaching material; choose a corridor entrance where the sun can shine, and install a wall Prism allows students to understand and feel the principle of rainbow...
Although only a small part of the design has been realized in the school's new campus due to various reasons, in the process of participating in the school design, the teachers enhanced the "big picture" The awareness of "curriculum" improves curriculum design capabilities, which itself is another kind of curriculum "hidden" in school design.
Campus space design principles
1. Understanding of educational concepts
Education should develop free, open and fully diverse values. Education should have individual autonomy and develop the characteristics and autonomy of local education; this should then be reflected in the physical space inside and outside the campus. Therefore, we should try to use professional construction skills to plan and create a space suitable for students to learn on campus, so that the campus can have a dialogue with the nature of education. Views on the role of environmental education in primary school campuses
The significance of education is to awaken intelligence, provide each child with a stage for development, help each child understand their own areas of expertise, and enable each child to be independent The ability to think has a chance of success. Based on this concept, it is reflected in the planning and design of the primary school campus. There will be the following seven views: a. Pay attention to local characteristics and culture, return to local environmental education, and pay attention to situational layout and planning. b. In line with the consideration of diversity and diversity, various facilities have reserved space for flexible use and imagination to stimulate students' creative ideas.
c. Return to the child’s space, return the child’s true nature, and allow the child to remain innocent forever. d. Simplify maintenance and understand the laws of harmony with nature.
e. In terms of movement lines and facilities, safety and efficiency must be fully considered.
f. Care for people with physical and mental disabilities and provide a barrier-free environment.
g. Consider the priority of student needs within limited resources.
2. The campus should be a simple and unpretentious one, constructed from a child’s perspective
The campus should be an ecological garden with natural environment combined with animals and plants, connected by natural trails. Smooth circulation lines in various spaces on campus make the school more efficient; there may not necessarily be a standard PU track, but there are wide lawns and green shades where children can run; it is a bit messy but has the scene of nature; in the green There is a wooden platform under the shade; the seats are unique to schools and communities. The outdoor space is an extension of the classroom space and a functional distinction between movement and rest. More importantly, create some small corners that are suitable for children to bring different surprises and keep personal secrets to different groups of children.
3. The campus should be a place where you can "memory"
Every plant and tree on the primary school campus will impress us as adults and have endless memories, so we firmly believe that These memories will become the most precious memories in children's hearts forever.
4. Principle of organic growth
The principle of "organic growth" (Organic Order). The so-called "organic growth" refers to the growth process of continuous "challenge and response" between organisms and the environment, which is also the process of life growth. The most interesting thing to learn is the sense of "life" - a result of growth and accumulation of experience, and a record of historical traces. When we are in older settlements, such as Sanxia, ??Hukou, Jiufen, Tamsui, Lukang, etc., every brick and tile there can make us think deeply and move us, because we read history, culture, and time from them. and growth.
A brand new campus space that is completed to a degree of 100 will have no growth, no personality, no accumulation, and naturally no life. Therefore, an organic growth opportunity should be provided, a controllable "unfinished" space should be created, and some gaps should be left for teachers and students to fill and complete according to their creativity and needs. In the process of continuous accumulation and continuous growth, let life will be nurtured.
For example: in the design of the new campus environment, only the structural facilities, such as the main structure and public facilities, are completed; as for the ancillary components such as corridors, toilets, towers, pools, walking paths, The pavement and even the color of the exterior walls can be completed jointly by the teachers and students of the school.