The Ideal Classroom for Collaboration
Picture your favorite classroom from when you were in school. Did it help you work with other people or keep to yourself? Was the teacher able to work with everyone individually or stay up at the front...
View ArticleMovement for Active Learning: Furniture that Improves Student Performance
In today’s modern classroom, students are not sitting still. They are moving around, interacting with their classmates and the technology that is inevitably surrounding them. Both the next generation...
View ArticleCollaborative Classroom Spaces: Academic Renaissance Requires Rethinking
For more than a century, students learned in rows of desks that were only able to face one way: toward the teacher. That teacher would stay at the front of the room in an effort to make learning as...
View ArticleThe Back-to-School Checklist for Outfitting & Updating Your Classroom
The best time to make some changes to your classroom is before the school year starts. August is all about starting with a clean slate. That extends to your learning space. Here are some things you...
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New Classroom Furniture Trends
This has been perhaps the most transformative decade in the history of education. There are so many new ideas, theories, and strategies taking shape that it’s hard for our facilities to reflect what we...
View ArticleCool New Preschool Center Ideas
We’re all familiar with the classic preschool and kindergarten learning center activities that involve blocks and books, but if you’re looking for something fresh in this new year, here are some ideas...
View ArticleCommon Areas – Uncommon Learning Areas
You might not believe it, but networking is just as important in school as it is at Chamber of Commerce luncheons. That’s not to say that students should hand out business cards, but rather that they...
View ArticleSchool Specialty to Display Furniture & Equipment for 21st Century Learning...
School Specialty will be showcasing a variety of furniture & equipment offerings for the 21st Century Classroom at the Education Market Association’s EDspaces conference. The conference and expo...
View ArticleCafetoriums and Food Courts – Not Just a Pretty Place
In many schools, the cafeteria is the largest open space. It is often one of the few revenue-generating spaces in the building. Unfortunately, more often than not, it is also underutilized. If designed...
View ArticleThe New Flora Elementary School
The four elementary schools serving the Flora, Ill., community needed an upgrade — some had been built as far back as the 1940s! These older facilities did not adequately serve the needs of the modern...
View ArticleAdministration and Offices – What’s Good for the Students Is Good for the Adults
Since the beginning, administrative offices have been walled off from the rest of the school community. Decorum and privacy called for the typical office setup: large desks, walled rooms, and lots of...
View ArticlePerformance Art Spaces – 21st Century Benefits for Students
It takes creativity and communication skills to put a performance piece to paper. It takes critical thinking and collaboration to actually produce the idea. And it takes media and digital literacy to...
View ArticleSTEM, STEAM, CTE & Lab Spaces
In efforts to make our students more competitive in the global economy, educators and leaders have renewed focus on science, technology, engineering, and math—the areas in which America is seen as...
View ArticleComputer Learning Spaces: Flipped Learning 101
It seems as if technology has touched every facet of education—even the concept of homework. That’s where flipped learning comes in. What is flipped learning? The concept of “flipping” a classroom...
View ArticleMedia Centers – Not Just for Books
What were once “libraries” became “media centers” sometime in the 20th century. This change reflected a student’s increasing reliance on media, specifically technology, in their studies and their...
View ArticleOutdoor Learning Spaces – Extending Learning Beyond the Walls
Two cultural shifts are combining to have a detrimental effect on our children. This generation spends roughly half as much time outside as children 20 years ago. Meanwhile, between digital learning in...
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Stroudsburg High School – Case Study
Stroudsburg Turns to School Specialty to Update HighSchool In 2011, the Stroudsburg Area School District in Stroudsburg, PA decided to completely overhaul Stroudsburg High School in order to offer the...
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Clark County School District – Case Study
Total Revamp: F&E Solutions for School District Overhaul When the Clark County School District in Clark County, Kentucky undertook the massive task of building and overhauling four schools in just...
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Flora Elementary School – Case Study
From Four Schools to One – Outfitting a 21st Century Elementary School in Flora, IL As far back as 1998, the Flora Community School District in Flora, Illinois recognized that the four elementary...
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4 Growing Trends for Active Learning Spaces
Contrary to traditional classroom practices, research is confirming what classroom teachers have always suspected – that reducing recess time and physical activity during a school day is having an...
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