The new learning space allows us to keep students more engaged. At the same time, it also helps teachers think about curriculum differently. Middle school students want to be autonomous and competent, they want to build relationships and they want to have fun. The newly designed space will allow the Academy to meet those needs.

The middle school collection will be housed within the new building, mainly within the second floor. The high school collection will be relocated to the second floor of the main building, and the elementary school collection will move closer to the pre-K wing. By moving the collections closer to the students, students will be more likely to read a book or grab a magazine during the day.

The Academy has tested samples of the furniture. All of the furniture is on casters so it is easy to move and rearrange, and there are several seating options for students to choose what they prefer. We will have dotty stools, which allow students to lean and move, which is helpful for focus. There will also be couches, soft seating, and chairs with arms and without. We will also offer chairs at different heights.

Each of the learning studios can close off for direct instruction. The learning commons have been designed to accommodate multiple groups working in zones. The carpet and fabrics absorb sound, there are acoustical clouds, and the variety in ceiling height helps with acoustics. Each learning studio will be equipped with TOPCAT classroom audio.

A great deal of thought went into the arrangement of the learning studios. Furniture and whiteboards will be oriented away from windows and doors to cut down on distraction. With the iLab, we have found students are more engaged in their lessons, which helps with distractibility.

Students and teachers will still have a specific schedule with a specific meeting location. Each class will have a learning studio as a home base. We will still follow the block schedule.

The space is designed to facilitate the teaching and learning that is already happening at the Academy. It’s not going to be dramatically different. To use the block schedule effectively, teachers must break up their time. For instance, they may take 10 minutes for direct instruction, then have students break up for collaborative work, then regroup for more direct instruction, then share out. This design makes instruction more flexible and easy. Learning studios are like classrooms, however they can be combined for cross-curricular learning or closed for direct instruction. We are removing hallways, which is essentially wasted space, and replacing them with commons areas.

For girls, the next phase of the facilities master plan is to redesign the high school. Students are already used to the block schedule so there is no change there. The Academy middle school is teaching students learning skills, and they can apply those skills no matter where they attend high school.

We will announce plans for after school activities prior to opening the building.

Articles and Reports

• American Management Association Critical Skills Survey
• A Parent's Guide to 21st Century Education (Edutopia)
• Don't Just Rebuild Schools--Reinvent Them (Prakash Nair, Education Week)
• Education Needs a Digital-Age Upgrade (New York Times)
• Havens of Resilience (Nan Henderson, Educational Leadership)
• How Good is Good Enough? (Grant Wiggins, Educational Leadership)
• Need a Job? Invent It. (New York Times Op-Ed)
• Princeton Classes Innovate to Enhance Teaching and Learning (Emily Aronson, Princeton Office of Communications)
• Seven Keys to Effective Feedback (Grant Wiggins, Educational Leadership)
• The Classroom is Obsolete (Prakash Nair, Education Week)
• “Well, Duh!”--Ten Obvious Truths That We Shouldn’t Be Ignoring (Alfie Kohn, American School Board Journal)
• Why Isn't Innovation Taught in the Classroom? (Forbes)

Videos

• FabLab@School (Stanford professor Paulo Blikstein's TEDx video presentation)
• Play, Passion, Purpose (Harvard researcher Tony Wagner's TEDx video presentation)

Short Clips from Tony Wagner's "Creating Innovators"

• A Differently Motivated Generation (Anne Marie Neal, Cisco Systems)
• Innovation and Empathy (David Kelley, IDEO)
• Innovation, Passion and Purpose (Amanda Alonzo, Lynnbrook High)
• The Value of Failure (Amanda Alonzo, Lynnbrook High)

Interested in additional resources? Email Emily Wise for further research, book suggestions and videos as suggested
by AHN faculty and staff.