Designing Spaces for Learning (WS)

We stand upon an apex of educational change and our spaces are due to be redesigned. For the past forty years we seen incredible technological innovations transform the way in which we teach. Pushing learning to a digital platform has increased accessibility, provided alternatives for pacing and given students new ways to share their voice. Despite the changes in our virtual environments the past 500 years the physical environment has remained largely unchanged.

The spaces we live and learn in act on all our senses and affect us subconsciously. We need to better understanding our physical environments and their impacts so they can be leveraged for deeper learning.

Return to your school armed with with a designers eye, prepared to look at your teaching space through a new lense that will allow you to invigorate learning.

Audience: Educators interested in considering how purposeful use of space can enhance teaching and learning.

About Nathaniel Atherton

Nathaniel Atherton is an educator at the Western Academy of Beijing. Throughout his time at WAB he has worked with teachers, students and staff to re-imagine the school’s physical spaces and enhance teaching and learning.

He continues his work beyond WAB, as a learning spaces researcher and designer and has implemented innovative changes to classroom spaces and schools across the globe.

Nathaniel’s passion had lead him to share and present his work at conferences, including multiple EARCOS and ACAMIS Teacher Conferences and the Next Generation Learning Spaces Asia conference. Nathaniel blogs about learning spaces at makespace4learning.com