What does the classroom of the future look like?
A few days ago, at a professors’ meeting, one of my colleagues said that we need to start a discussion about the classroom of the future. For those who work in the educational environment, this is a constant question that reveals itself in the search for a more qualified and assertive learning process for students. In my case, I’ve been listening to questions like that for over 13 years. I still remember when the former president of the institution where I work asked me this for the first time in 2009.
What does the classroom of the future look like?
To answer this question, we started a project with an applied research group. The group included people from different academic areas, working in a transdisciplinary perspective and broadening the debate. The project involved prototype rooms with design, technology, interaction, and other elements. Ten years later, and with a lot of experience in this area, we used many of the insights we had in this process to develop the concept of an innovative classroom. We prototyped it in our new campus, in every classroom. From then on, we carried out surveys with the students to understand the impact of the classrooms on their learning process.
The findings of these surveys are available in articles we have published (1) but the summary of what students think can be expressed in the following sentence:
The classroom must not be an obstacle, it should be a flexible space that allows teachers and students an appropriate level of interaction, promoting the collective construction of knowledge. The classroom should be like a canvas where teachers and students can design together a meaningful learning process.
In other words, physical space matters when it gets in the way when it becomes an obstacle. Simplifying this place and transforming it into an open space that allows social relationships and learning conversations seems to be a good way forward.
After many years of studying it, we finally prototyped a model that seemed to be beneficial for student’s engagement and learning. But then, the COVID pandemic started.
At that moment, classrooms all over the world became dematerialized.
We’ve all had to reinvent ourselves quickly and settle into virtual classrooms, trying to rebuild spaces of belonging and generate online engagement. It was a period of trial and error, and adaptation using new technologies, for teachers, who had to figure out new ways of engaging students. Likewise, it was a difficult time for the students, who had to adapt their homes and workspaces to promote a proper connection in class.
Some time later with the pandemic’s impact reduced, the idea of the hybrid classroom emerged. Some students were online, and others were in person. This process led teachers to look for new ways of interacting and dealing with two environments. It was once again a highly complex process, and it uncovered the difficulty of building a sense of belonging.
With successes and failures, the institutions have moved forward and we are now celebrating the possibility of being back interacting face-to-face. Although the virtual environment remains a possibility, more organizations understand the importance of face-to-face social contact to develop conversations, and dialogues, and promote learning.
So, it is time to repeat the question: What does the classroom of the future look like?
After this experience, I have different answers for this. The first fundamental reflection that helps us to move forward in this debate is to think if this is the question we should be asking. Is it possible to think about a classroom of the future? Do we need this to help our students learn?
We live chasing something for the future without living in the present, and perhaps that’s why we don’t have the exact understanding of the changes needed in education. It’s not about the classroom of the future, but about the changes in the system to build an education “of the now”.
When we think about classrooms, we can find countless studies (2,3,4,5,6,7) describing different elements that impact the learning process. We can think, for example, of elements like flexibility, technology, furniture, natural elements, and environmental aesthetics.
However, the central question should not be which classroom is the classroom of the future. We should think about broader questions that are more connected to the importance of education for citizenship, such as:
How do educational spaces in schools and universities promote conversation?
How can we promote spaces of well-being and belonging for students making them comfortable to bring and share their experiences in educational institutions?
How can we develop spaces that promote the construction of pluriverses (8,9), understanding human diversity, and the need for learning beyond the universe we usually recognize?
These issues should be on the agenda so that schools and universities, perceived by many people as spaces far from their reality, become extensions of their homes.
We need to understand students’ reality, bringing educational institutions into these realities. This kind of action makes even more sense in countries like Brazil, with such unequal realities.
How can we promote actions in different communities, building empathy and impact?
The more I research, the more I read and talk to people who want to go beyond ready-made answers, and the more I realize that there is no such thing as the classroom of the future.
There is the classroom that changes realities now, and that can promote social transformation. But I don’t know to what extent we are aware of this.
What kind of connection do we want?
Yesterday, I was listening to an interview with Douglas Rushkoff at Time Magazine (10), and at one point the reporter asked him about the importance of technology. He replied: “Technology is cool, but it can’t see us. It only sees data.”
The feeling I get is that we, humans, who have this ability to see and recognize ourselves in differences, many times prefer not to.
Perhaps this is the big question for thinking about the future of education and learning spaces: How do we recognize ourselves as humanity? How can we connect to promote a collective transformation?
It’s not about the classroom, but about recognizing the pluriverses we live in and the possibilities we open up every day when we interact with different people.
It is in this space, in this interaction, that we learn.
To know more about:
Education for citizenship: Westheimer, Joel. What Kind of Citizen? Educating Our Children for the Common Good. Teachers College Press (April 6, 2015)
Student Engagement: Shirley, Dennis; Hargreaves, Andy. Five Paths of Student Engagement: Blazing the Trail to Learning and Success (Your Guide to Promoting Active Engagement in the Classroom and Improving Student Learning). Solution Tree Press; 1st edition (June 11, 2021)
Pluriverse Design: Leitão, Renata M. From Needs to Desire: Pluriversal Design as a Desire-Based Design, Design and Culture, 14:3, 255–276, DOI: 10.1080/17547075.2022.2103949, 2022.
References:
1- Borba, G.S., Alves, I.M. & Campagnolo, P.D.B. How Learning Spaces Can Collaborate with Student Engagement and Enhance Student-Faculty Interaction in Higher Education. Innov High Educ 45, 51–63 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-019-09483-9
2- Dey, E., Burn, H. E., & Gerdes, D. (2009). Bringing the classroom to the web: Effects of using new technologies to capture and deliver lectures. Research in Higher Education, 50, 377–393.
3- Neil, S., & Etheridge, R. (2008). Flexible learning spaces: The integration of pedagogy, physical design, and instructional technology. Marketing Education Review, 18, 47–53.
4- Mau, B., Pigozzi, O., & Peterson. (2010). The third teacher: 79 ways you can use design to transform teaching & learning (Kindle edition). Brownstown, MI: Motor City Books
5- Rands, M. L., & Gansemer-Topf, A. M. (2017). The room itself is active: How classroom design impacts student engagement. Journal of Learning Spaces, 6, 25–33.
6- Kolb, A. Y., & Kolb, D. A. (2005). Learning styles and learning spaces: Enhancing experiential learning in higher education. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 4, 193–212.
7- Hyun, J., Ediger, R., & Lee, D. (2017). Students’ satisfaction on their learning process in active learning and traditional classrooms. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 29, 108–118.
8- Kotjari, Ashish, Salleh, Ariel, Escobar, Arturo, Demaria, Federico, Acosta, Alberto (organizadores). Pluriverse — a post-development dictionary. Tulika books, 2019
9- Noel, Lesley-Ann, and Tulane University. “Envisioning a Pluriversal Design Education.” Pivot 2020: Designing a World of Many Centers, 2020. doi:10.21606/PLURIVERSAL.2020.021.
10- Douglas Rushkoff on How Human Behavior is Training AI. https://time.com/collection/person-of-the-week-podcast/6311418/douglas-rushkoff-interview-person-of-the-week/
