Natural Pod, represented by myself and Marianne Honnaker-Kelly our President, was at LearningScapes, a conference by the Association for Learning Environments (A4LE), in Portland in October. Attending a conference like LearningScapes helps us at Natural Pod to hear new research, explore case studies and confirm that our work is in coherence with today’s pressing issues.

Read on for a few highlights from my time at LearningScapes, attending sessions, collaborating with other stakeholders at the intersection of learning and educational space design, and co-presenting a session with Sandra-Lynn Shortall from the West Vancouver School District. I hope that these insights will offer inspiration for your work.

Movement is essential in a learning space

I attended a session by Tomas Jiménez-Eliaeson and Daniel Montaño Leon, both from Little Diversified Architectural Consulting, Inc called “Experience Design (XD): Understanding and Enhancing the Student Experience through Design”. We explored the nuanced connections between students’ home life, school experiences, and post-school activities through the lens of Experience Design with specific insights shared by students themselves. Their research really highlighted that success cannot be achieved until we truly listen to students’ themselves.

An interesting idea that stood out to me was – there have been studies that explored starting school 30 minutes later than what we do right now – and these studies showed that when children had access to more sleep it helped them focus better and thrive. Having two children of my own, now graduated from high school, I do think this would have helped them during their K-12 years.

The architects also shared a quote from Mind, Brain, & Education (David A. Sousa) saying “the typical Classroom Setting where students ‘sit and get’ was challenged by research findings showing that the brain is more active when learners are moving around. Movement brings additional fuel – carrying blood to the brain. It also allows the brain to access more long-term memory areas, thereby helping students make greater connections between new and prior learning.” Being a dancer, I related to this immensely, as I know I personally need movement to bring me to a productive state.

Creative ways to support the specific needs of your specific community

I attended a session called “Preschool For All! How Schools (and Other Spaces) Can Become Child Care Places Via Community Collaboration” by Molly Day of United Way, Ashley Butler, a real estate broker that advocates for inclusivity and equitable access to opportunities within the real estate sector especially for commercial child care providers, and Abby Dacey of Mahlum Architects.

My takeaways from this session came down to: it’s about really supporting each other in our specific community. The need for quality childcare is everywhere, but what that looks like in action may vary drastically amongst different communities, and identifying the features of the child care model that best supports the welfare of your community – whether it’s district-run or provider-run, vs centralized or distributed facilities – is the key to having the most impactful, supportive model. A resource they shared that our friends in the USA may find helpful can be found at this link. Use this resource to discover your local childcare experts, who can help you understand the local childcare system, regulations and needs.

I really appreciated that Ashley, Molly and Abby highlighted being creative and finding possibilities around building constraints and other challenges.

Flourishing as the measure of success

A Natural Pod space is meant to be comfortable, and I’ve even been quoted as saying “it should feel like home”. I attended a session called, “Flourishing: Spaces for Creativity and Meaning for Young Learners”, presented by Renee Fine, Adele Willson of Hord Coplan Macht, and Sheri Collier of Discovery Magnet School. In this session flourishing is framed as the ultimate, student-centered measure of success for education. And in practical terms, that means designing environments that support play, engender creativity, nourish the senses, and foster social connection. Designing towards a space that encourages choice, that creates a space that truly shows there is no one “right way” to thinking and learning, will help our students flourish.

I liked that the key takeaways for this session were short and powerful:

• 20% of people have some form of neurodiversity.
• 11.3% of children ages 5-17 years in the USA have ADHD.
• 93% of school health workers say they’ve seen an increase in students with anxiety since 2019.
• Young people spend more of their waking hours in school than anywhere else.
• There is no one “right way” to thinking and learning.
• Places and spaces which inspire a sense of wonder for students and educators alike are urgently needed.

Aligning schools’ vision with environmental considerations

With an eye-catching session title like “A Shockingly Interesting Session on Ethics: Shaping Future-Ready Schools”, I went into this session by the team at Fielding International – Randy Fielding, Nathan Strenge and Cierra Mantz – already curious after reading a description that we would “challenge the traditional method” in the session outline. This session was highly interactive with wonderfully integrated group activity, dialogue, and collaboration. We were able to remain curious and open.

At one point we broke off into groups, choosing a subject that interested us as an opportunity for dialogue. I chose sustainability & environmental impact, where the question posed was “what is the responsibility of architects in advocating for and implementing green building practices and materials?”. My answer was – they are the ultimate advocates, and it matters. This tied in with other answers like, it’s essential and we need to lead by example; and a push to challenge district facility standards.

I deeply appreciated a slide this team shared, around An Aligned Ecosystem (see it below).

Learning environments can catalyze (or hinder) things such as collaboration, creativity, movement, holistic safety, and wellness – so considering the physical and cultural environment of the school is essential for school design, and essential for a school to understand. A challenge that we’re seeing in educational environments is that a school’s vision and educational program may be misaligned with their physical environment. When the three work in harmony, they strengthen and support each other. But it takes courage to accept where they are misaligned, but from there we can take action to tackle the challenges this misalignment creates.

Bridgitte Alomes of Natural Pod and Sandra Lynn Shorthall from the West Vancouver School District

It’s very meaningful to me when I can help share stories and the voice of the educator with a broader audience than the school or district they work in. At LearningScapes, I co-presented a session with Sandra-Lynn Shortall from the West Vancouver School District titled Designing for Humanity: Bold, Brave, Impactful Educational Designs for Equity, Inclusivity and Excellence. Our session was designed as a Q+A, using her school district as a case study, discussing the opportunities and challenges of implementing a framework that harmonizes leadership, environment, and equity.

As I continue to vision out Natural Pod and our mission for working in collaboration with educators, learners and the community around them to create inspiring, healthy and sustainable environments, I am excited by the conversations I was privileged to be a part of at Learning Spaces.

Conversations like these are ones that my team participates in with our clients every day. We work with each space uniquely, to listen, and to understand their unique needs, and in that process, we co-design humanistic, intentional spaces.

I leave you with a quote from our session:

“The world of education, the world of business; the environment we are all in is to do more, do it faster. What my hope is that you take away from our time here today is: It’s up to us. It’s up to us to pause, to reflect, to be bold, to be brave. To make decisions today that will hold up tomorrow.”