FRIDAY | APRIL 3, 2020

10:45 AM - 11:45 AM

Room: Shaw

It is no surprise to educational planners that most current research announces that the key to achieving goals of equity in school design is to begin by seeking a clear and true understanding of each school community and all of its members, groups, and conditions. Newman Architects, lead by ALEP candidate Rachel Pampel, M. Edu, will present current tools for the discovery of this truth and partner with key school community members from Creative Minds International Public Charter School in DC and Morgan School in Clinton, CT, to hear their perspectives on how this discovery process is being/was managed at their schools, as well as their hopes for where those processes might lead in the future. This information will be presented in panel form, with encouragement for attendee interaction from the start, then dovetail into an interactive workshop in which the activities will be divided between attendees sharing their experiences, then analyzing similarities and differences with their peers. These activities will be facilitated by the panel members, as well as by tools and methods the Newman team have developed in their long history of successful school design and continue to develop and innovate to adapt to the quickly changing landscape of educational design. Some questions we will begin the panel and workshop with include:

• What has been most surprising to you during your school design processes?
• What crucial discoveries have you made/do you hope to make during the school design process?
• What do you think is most important for other architects, public school districts, communities, and other stakeholders to know and ask to find their authentic truths?

Some tools we will share:

• Ten Characteristics of a Good Learning Environment (Pampel, 2017)
• The Six Perspectives of the Learning Environment (Pampel, 2017)
• Successful Methods of Community Engagement for Learning Environment Design
• Prototype Methods of Community Engagement for the Pursuit of Equity in Education

Learning Objectives:

1. Participants will be able to strategically investigate the authentic and emerging contexts of their district, school, project.
2. Participants will be able to articulate and prioritize the authentic and emerging contexts of their district, school, project.
3. Participants will be able to equitably apply the results of their investigation into the authentic and emerging contexts of their district, school, project.
4. Participants will be able to recognize and cyclically apply authentic and emerging best practices in education and educational design to their meaningful understanding of their district, school, project.