Search results

The aim of this study is to understand classroom settings desired by high school students and teachers in an active learning classroom. The research question is whether students and teachers will differ from each other when designing an active learning classroom.

In an effort to design a learning environment for an advanced placement programme, action research methodology was followed by conducting a participatory workshop in a real active learning classroom with future users. Working in isolation from one another, students and teachers designed their own classrooms by forming different learning centres. During the study, two groups, made up of ten high school students and seven teachers, respectively, were asked to arrange the furniture in an active learning classroom. The groups were free to form as many furniture arrangement configurations as they wished and were asked to write about their workshop experiences afterwards. Once they had completed both tasks, their plan layouts were examined.

All of the plan layouts were found to fall into one of three categories: a traditional layout, a small group layout or a single large group layout. The written texts were also analysed, which revealed different perspectives of each participating group. As students and teachers explore different learning opportunities, they appear to be driven by different kinds of experiences when they endeavour to organize their classrooms.

Never before has an active learning classroom been the site for a participatory furniture arrangement workshop that employs teachers and students.

The aim of this study is to understand the effect of class configurations in an active learning classroom (ALC) on students' self-perception of experiences and learning outcomes, namely participation, performance, motivation and creativity.

A self-administered survey (N = 131) was conducted in seven classes from the varied disciplines of communication, interior design and architecture. During the first half of the semester, all selected courses were conducted in traditional classrooms, whereas those in the second half were conducted in an ALC. ALC was designed to be used with several furniture configurations which could be easily set up by members of the learning community themselves. The survey was conducted at the end of semester before final exams, when students have a clear idea of the experiences in both the traditional and the new (ALC) classrooms, having spent equal time in each of these learning environments.

The main finding of the study is that students were eager to have future classes in the ALC rather than in traditional settings since the students experienced better learning outcomes in the ALC. During the second half of the semester, students who were in classes conducted following active learning (AL) pedagogies, with its supportive spatial configurations, were more aware of the learning outcomes facilitated by the physical environment. Further, the authors found that the increase in the number of furniture configurations has a statistically significant positive impact on learning outcomes.

AL pedagogy is often studied as a way of teaching and rarely with its associated classroom environments. In most of the existing studies, the configuration of furniture has often been overlooked within an AL environment by a learning community. This study fills the gap in emphasising the spatial aspects of the ALC by focusing on the specific pedagogy being followed.

The observation by the authors, based on their extensive experience working in K-8 public schools in the region showed the special needs classrooms catering to children with exceptionalities such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Intellectual Disability (ID) and Emotional Disturbance (ED) are typically makeshift arrangements with no consideration given to students' unseen sensory needs. A thorough literature review indicates that there are no holistic design guidelines in place to meet the sensory needs of students with ASD, ID and ED. This study seeks to address this gap by providing considerations to meet the sensory needs impacting these students' focus, behavior and classroom engagement with course content and peers.

Sensory design guidelines were established utilizing a qualitative method, providing a foundation for the development of classroom prototypes that address the sensory needs of students with ASD, ID and ED.

The new guidelines, which correlated interior design strategies with the sensory needs of children with ASD, ID and ED, and the resulting prototypes provide a basis for the further development of design standards and takes designers closer to creating more conducive and inclusive environments.

This study reinforced the belief that these recommendations should be considered in the school-wide design. Many students can be included with their typical peers for all or part of their school day if space has been designed to accommodate their differences.

This study bridges the gap while documenting the correlation between design factors and sensory needs of students with exceptionalities, in this case, ASD, ID and ED.

There is currently a lack of research describing the best way to design learning environments for increasing numbers of children with autism. The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of classroom design on the learning and behaviour of pupils with severe autism. The research variables of interest were classroom layout; furniture, fittings and equipment (FFE); materials; colour scheme; wayfinding; lighting; acoustics; and security.

This study conducted a post-occupancy evaluation of classrooms for pupils with severe autism aged 3–19 in a school ten years after its completion. Data collection included a visual assessment of the building and an online survey to educators and administrators asking how satisfied they were that the research variables benefited pupils with severe autism.

Key findings were that zoned areas for different activities met students’ needs. Withdrawal rooms off the classroom, access to shared hygiene facilities and a secure outdoor area received high ratings. The main criticisms were the lack of robustness of FFE and the inability to control temperature. Results were collated into a table of recommendations for classroom design for severely autistic pupils.

The findings demonstrate classroom features that support the needs of pupils with severe autism, an area with limited prior research. Some findings support previous research and some adds new knowledge to our understanding of design for this population. The results provide empirical evidence for professionals involved in designing classrooms for pupils with severe autism.

This article explores the little understood practice of school interior design and the manner in which school interiors give form to ideas about what the work of children and teachers could and should look like. Its focus is a perceived link between the concepts of school work made material in the design of new twenty‐first century learning environments and those expressed in the design of Modernist progressive schools such as Richard Neutra’s Corona Ave, Elementary School, California. The article’s impetus comes from current interest in the inter‐relationship between the design of physical learning environments and pedagogy reform as governments in Australia and internationally, work to transform teaching and learning practices through innovative school building and refurbishment projects. Government campaigns, for example the UK’s Schools for the Future Program and Australia’s Victorian Schools Plan, use a promotional rhetoric that calls for the final dismantling of the cellular classroom with its industrial model of work so that ‘different pedagogical approaches and the different ways that children learn [can] be represented in the design of new learning environments’, in buildings and interiors designed to support contemporary constructivist‐inspired pedagogies.

The aim of this study is to present design tactics (DTs) for supporting the adaptability of existing primary and middle school buildings into the emerging needs of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The study introduces a novel algorithmic model for postoccupancy evaluation of the existing school buildings and provides solutions to enhance the adaptability of these buildings.

This study employs the DTs defined by the authors, integration of DTs to the algorithmic model and tests the usability of the proposed model in the selected sample set. The sample set consists of four primary and middle school buildings with different architectural qualities. The degrees of flexibility of the existing sample set are evaluated depending on the outcomes of the implementation.

The degrees of flexibility are achieved as a result of execution of the algorithmic model for each selected school building. Initial results of the case studies show that the flexibility of a school building is highly related to affordances and design decisions of the plan layout which were considered in the initial phases of the design process. Architectural qualities such as open plan and having sufficient voids in the interior and exterior space become prominent factors for ensuring flexibility.

Developing a systematic approach to the adaptation problem of primary and middle school buildings to postpandemic reuse is a novel research topic. Apart from this contextual originality, the proposed taxonomy for postpandemic reuse in terms of three levels of adaptation is a new conceptual framework. Moreover, the proposed algorithmic model itself can be considered as an original contribution, as well as a merge of qualitative values such as adaptation and flexibility with an algorithmic model.

The purpose of this research is to investigate natural illumination properties of one of the classrooms in the School of Architecture at Izmir Institute of Technology, located in Turkey, which is the northern hemisphere.

In this study, the definitions of the basic terms in daylighting, such as daylight factor, illuminance, glazing ratio, are given first. Then, a luxmeter and a lighting simulation software, Velux, are used in order to calculate variable lighting factors during daytime, at different storeys, at different directions, for the classes. Velux is a proprietary software and it enables natural lighting analysis practically.

Chosen classrooms are examined regarding their having sufficient natural illumination. The height of windows from the floor is changed, and the resultant effects on natural lighting in the classrooms are determined by using the lighting simulation program, Velux. The study shows that daylight factor and illumination near the window decreases as the height of the window above the floor increases. However, the illumination increases away from the window, giving greater uniformity to the lighting. At the same time, the usable depth of the classroom increases. The tall and narrow windows bring the daylight near themselves.

Practical window design decisions can help architects to provide effective and healthy natural lighting for interiors.

Adjustment of the dimensions of the windows is important in order to balance the energy consumption of buildings. This study investigates natural lighting depending on both experimental measurements and simulation software, Velux.

Interior design is a process which collaborates different approaches, strategies, methodologies and practices. This study is a social responsibility project which had been conducted under the supervision of the author and the authorities of The Educational Volunteers Foundation of Turkey (TEGV). The purpose of this project is to investigate how effective the integration of knowledge-based sessions and research-project development phases, while trying to increase students’ motivation. The project had been rejenerated twice, in 2014 and 2015 spring terms, during which the visual research method was photographing, computer modelling, interviews with authorities and children. In regard to the mission of the foundation, twenty-eight interior design students (in 2014 spring term) and seventeen students (in 2015 spring term) developed concept sheets, prepared design proposals, presented and submitted them to the authorities. This paper is a brief discussion and evaluation on the design process which may help to provide a base for similar social responsibility projects. Design proposals in the study may also help to identify new research questions such as whether/how changes in social, physical and cognitive concerns may influence the psychological reactions to educational activity centers and how such impacts may help enhance the affective quality in designs where necessary. In the project, each project team was asked to develop a concept map and to identify the most important words. It was recorded that all groups used “children” as the main keyword in their concept maps. Hence, the most frequently referred terms in the concept maps were grouped, analysed and interpreted, which can also be defined as the “concept map” of the project. Another concrete outcome of the study was the encouragement of students, they got involved in the design process equally. They were honoured by “TEGV social responsibility certificates” which supported their awareness and motivation to the design process as well.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on connecting recent conceptualizations of learning space design in management education by examining interior building and classroom design.

This study used mixed methods research: external benchmarking with same industry institutions (n=5) and two surveys of students (n=131) and faculty members (n=38).

The process helped to envision how a business school could improve by adapting design aspects from industry peers, understanding the needs of students and faculty, and incorporating new teaching methods and instructional technologies to inform learning space solutions.

The small number of external benchmarking partners may make the findings more applicable to the institutional type examined. Yet, the findings and the mixed methods research have implications for learning space design more broadly.

With the business school building boom, the external architecture of new buildings appears to garner much of the attention. However, the researchers believe that the real impact of new business schools is the centrality of interior learning space design and technology.

This paper uses a mixed methods research approach to examine learning space theory and research in relation to a particular business school’s efforts to use this knowledge to design learning spaces in a new building.

The success of the efforts for green building depends largely on integrating such approaches with building design education. However, most of the existing studies on green building have focused on the technical issues, while its socio-cultural and educational aspects have been less examined. In order to alleviate the problem, this paper presents an international workshop that explores how green building design can be taught in a global teamwork project using a green building assessment system, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) checklist as a framework and examples of vernacular architecture as precedents. The results of an empirical survey reveals a gap between students' general learning about green building in a developing and a developed country and suggests that a collaborative project experience may facilitate bridging the gap and exchanging technical and cultural information related to sustainability.