Learning Spaces: DreamLab Becoming a Reality

My students and I are blessed to be starting a new and exciting journey together in our learning space.  Don Orth, Tim Springer, Anita Orozco-Huffman,  and Jennie Magiera have been dreaming this dream with me for a while, our exploration is around how an agile learning space can impact learning and learners.  My students starting exploring space concepts on Friday.  We asked the questions: Where can you be your true self?  Who is there with you?  What do you feel when you are there?   What things are there?  What can you do there?  They came up with wonderful ideas and emotions about their special space!

We then asked them to take those ideas and imagine a space.  The students worked in their own way to design and then explain their ideal spaces.  As you can imagine many of them were filled with fun activities, candy and favorite foods, people they loved and the freedom to do whatever they choose in this space.  But maybe the most interesting part of this activity was how they chose to work on it in the classroom.

After they created a visual and voice recorded their dream space on Doceri, the students talked about what they liked best about the day's activities.

In the end, students want to have choice and want their ideas and voices heard.  I am so excited to see how those two aspects grow and change when students can create learning spaces with the new mobile furniture.  We will continue to ask the questions to our students: What type of space do you need for this work?  How did you feel working in the space you created?  What changes will you make next time?

Special thanks to Tim Springer for the great images!