Room: D139-140

Audience: Architects

Call to Action: We invite you to take a bold step toward reimagining educational spaces. Reflect on the insights shared and consider how a partnership with a visionary designer, an innovative educator, or a strategic leader could transform your approach to creating learning environments. Here’s a few ideas to initiate this collaborative journey: 

1. Identify Your Visionary: Think about the challenges and opportunities within your current projects. Who among our speakers resonated with you the most? Is it the educator with a knack for understanding student needs, the designer with transformative ideas, or the leader with the strategic blueprint for change? Reach out to them for an exploratory conversation to discuss potential collaborations.
2. Craft a Collaborative Plan: With your chosen partner, co-develop a targeted plan that incorporates our discussed strategies into your next project. This plan should be actionable and focused on creating spaces that are not just functional but inspiring.
3. Prototype and Iterate: Engage in a project that embodies the principles and tools from today’s session. This should be a living prototype, one that evolves through feedback and showcases the power of partnerships in bringing about educational innovation.

Abstract: From 2019 to 2023, the San Francisco Unified School District’s Superintendent’s Innovation Fellowship (SIF) program embarked on redefining educational spaces. This initiative blended leadership, pedagogical innovation, and design to evolve traditional classrooms into dynamic, inclusive, and adaptable learning environments. Our workshop showcases this pioneering effort through a case study, highlighting the co-creation framework supported by partnerships and resources emphasizing instructional and design expertise. Participants will explore the SIF’s foundations, design principles, and the impact of collaborative space transformation on teacher mindsets and instructional practice. We will introduce resources that illustrate how educators translated teacher insights into practical design solutions, encouraging a shift in mindset and teaching practices. The workshop will also focus on the role of student engagement in the co-design process, featuring tools that foster empathy and meet sensory needs, which empowered students and teachers to reimagine their learning spaces together. Through this interactive session, participants will gain an understanding of how to apply these co-design principles and tools to enhance the student experience in their educational environments.

Learning Objectives:

1. Equip educators with strategies to evolve their mindsets, embracing flexible and student-centered approaches within their teaching spaces.
2. Foster student co-creation in classroom design, emphasizing the value of student input and ownership in shaping their learning environments.
3. Provide designers with a toolkit of methodologies and resources to support the practical application of co-design principles in educational settings.
4. Develop educators’ spatial proficiency skills, enabling them to effectively utilize and transform classroom spaces into versatile learning areas.