The environment shapes the foundation of healthy development and learning. The aim of this colloquium is to share the authors' recent research efforts to center children as necessary codesign partners in their built learning environments. To do this, the authors believe that it is important to reposition preschool inclusion as a bottom-up, or…

This dissertation blends architectural history with disability studies to better understand the social construction of disability during childhood in the early twentieth century. Open-air schools and classes emerged as an educational experiment in the United States in 1904 and were abandoned by 1945. These spaces sought to improve the education of…

In this article, Jennifer Jones describes how at Pine Street School in New York City, they have dispensed with the traditional industrial model of schooling and are looking ahead to the future. The entire school was designed with optional learning environments. Jones describes innovative elements from varied seating (floor cushions, modular…

The New York City Department of Education has recently set forth new mandates for the redesign of classrooms. Teachers must be taught how to redesign their classrooms correctly so that all students will be provided with the necessary space to accommodate their environmental learning-style preferences. By altering the classroom, teachers give some…

Here is a situation where the classroom comes to the students. Mobile unit brings elementary industrial arts class to school.

This teacher's guide from the New York City public schools is designed to help teachers implement an all-day kindergarten program. Planning for the all-day kindergarten is developed and demonstrated through a thematic approach which integrates all curriculum areas. Six themes are presented, each of which includes both direct instruction activities…

The "Open Door" Program began in Spring 1968 at PS 123 and in Fall 1968 at PS 84, and has been expanded in these schools in the 1969-70 school year. It seeks, within the large urban school, to set up a flexible and intimate learning environment, to provide greater continuity between grade levels, and to enrich the curriculum so that…