School planning and design implicitly enters the realm of urban development when public school districts make land-use decisions on where to locate, construct, operate, maintain, and close their facilities. Moreover, schools and their campuses can impact the physical environment, influence urban design and development patterns, affect the local…

This dissertation was conducted to explore the influence of architectural design on educators' and students' behavior and perception about their learning. The study began with four principal questions, concerning a new academic building at the University of Kansas. However, the inquiry process took me to different directions. The questions focused…

The purpose of this study was to examine the implications of the start-up experience for the evolution and sustainability of charter schools. I conducted interviews of founding members to identify the how design decisions were made, the successes and challenges that came about, and how these experiences informed school design. Interview data and…

This article draws on environmental justice frameworks located in urban planning (Agyeman et al., 2002; Pellow, 2007) and critical place inquiry (Tuck & McKenzie, 2014) to focus on the relationship between green building curriculum, career and technical education, and climate justice. Green building--a rapidly growing field within the…

The education model in which a single teacher instructs a single classroom of students has been remarkably persistent, but teacher shortages, low morale, and poor teacher retention are signs that it's not working well for teachers. Ray Reutzel and Parker Fawson describe how Utah's Center for the School of the Future is seeking to redesign the…

This chapter discusses the role of ideas of the future in educational governance by design. It focuses in particular on the way that unsustainable, unsubstantiated and technologically romantic ideas of the future informed the UK government's Building Schools for the Future programme and the implications of this for the eventual design and lived…

As we have come to accept the duality of physical and virtual learning spaces as a permanent feature of our educational landscape, we begin to question its validity. Is this really a dichotomy, or is it a continuum? Should this be the primary dimension around which we cluster educational experiences -- how does it intersect and interact with other…

The purpose of this conceptual work is to explore ways in which K-12 classrooms can be used as a physical and abstract model for society in which students can practice becoming effective, participatory citizens. The authors framed this manuscript around ways in which the K-12 learning environment can be transformed into "a miniature community…

The Maker Movement inspires people to express their creativity by making things in a self-directed and, often, collaborative learning endeavor. The excitement of the movement has spurred the development of various types of Makerspaces across the United States and the World to further enable people to "make" and innovate. The education…

"Design Standards for School Art Facilities" is an invaluable resource for any school or school district looking to build new facilities for the visual arts or renovate existing ones. Discover detailed information about spaces for the breadth of media used in the visual arts. Photographs illustrate all types of features including…

The Green Space Based Learning (GSBL) is an educational model to mainstream green infrastructure within urban environments that builds on a long-term partnership between a Research I university, surrounding underserved community, and local school district with a portion being piloted through a federally funded Research Experience for Teachers…

Given the differences in social, emotional, and physiological development among elementary, middle, and high school students, it should come as no surprise that collaborative spaces should be designed differently for each age group. The needs of younger students do not necessarily mirror those of their older peers. Architect and educator Peter…

The movement to extend universal design from physical to instructional environments has escalated in the past two decades. Frameworks to guide the field of postsecondary education in its efforts to intentionally build accessibility features into college teaching and course materials include Universal Design in Education, Universal Design for…

The twenty-first century has seen the rapid emergence of wireless broadband and mobile communications devices which are inexorably changing the way people communicate, collaborate, create and transfer knowledge. Yet many higher education campus learning environments were designed and built in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries prior to…

The "Talking Stick" is published bimonthly, six times a year in January/February, March/April, May/June, July/August, September/October, and November/December by the Association of College and University Housing Officers-International. Each issue is divided into three sections: Features, Columns, and Departments. These sections contain articles…