Lighting+AV+specialist

**Lighting/audio/visual specialists (Craig& Misty)**
(e.g., lighting controls, windows and natural light, acoustics, video projection and display technologies)

NOTES/HIGHLIGHTS

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 * Nat'l Institute if Building Sciences: Whole Building Design Guide**

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33 Educational Design Principles for Schools and Community Learning Centers
J//effery A. Lackney, PhD AIA University of Wisconsin-Madison Updated: August, 2007//

Educational Design Principle No. 7: Consider Home as a Template for School Problem: The transition from the home setting to institutional settings such as the school environment can be stressful, especially for younger children. Experience tells us that incorporating physical and social home-like characteristics into the institutional setting may reduce anxiety on the part of both parent and child, and help children feel more comfortable and enable them to better concentrate on learning. Solution: Use friendly, "home-like" elements and materials in the design of the school at all scales when appropriate and possible. Home-like characteristics might include: the creation of smaller groupings of students often called “families” as part of the middle school philosophy, the design of appropriately-scaled elements, the location of restrooms near instructional areas, friendly and welcoming entry sequences, the design of residential-sloping roofs, and the creation of enclosed ‘back-yards’. Use familiar and meaningful elements from the surrounding residential neighborhood as the "template" for the imagery of the new school/community learning center.

Educational Design Principle No. 11: Provide Space for Sharing Learning Resources Problem: For students and educators to be successful, the availability of resources by students and faculty is important. Students that do not have access to learning spaces, teachers and resources will be at a disadvantage. The reality of limited resources in today’s schools suggests strongly that sharing all available learning resources would be optimal. Soluton: Provide a well-defined area directly adjacent to learning alcoves and core spaces that provide technology-rich resources that can be shared by learners in a learning cluster. Resources can serve a wide variety of functions: from small, specialized libraries, information technology and other instructional media, to special equipment storage or general workspace. By creating learning areas that have direct accessibility to these resources, the learning process will be supported.

Problem: Learning takes place in many different kinds and qualities of spaces. The self-contained classroom can no longer provide the variety of learning settings necessary to successfully facilitate Twenty-first century learning. Solution: Allow for as wide a variety of group learning sizes as possible. Nest learner groupings from an entire “family” of 100 learners, to five groups of 20 learners, to groups of 12, 4-6 and 1-2 learners. Create a variety of adjoining learning spaces and arrangements in keeping with the educational program goals of the school. Create partially open/partially closed space, with adjacent, smaller, enclosed spaces, the smaller spaces separated yet connected. Ensure moderate visual openness, yet also ensure adequate acoustical barriers. Articulate each cluster of instructional areas by gathering several small-group learning areas around a space for large-group instruction. Each of the small group areas can be further divided into individual activity areas to allow for quiet, individualized self-directed learning.
 * Educational Design Principle No. 12: Design for a Variety of Learning Groups and Spaces**

Problem: Project-based learning and studio-based instruction emphasize learning as a team and foster the cooperation and sharing of ideas that will enable students to process material better. Rather than struggle as individuals, learners can use the strengths of a group to decrease the time it takes to learn a lesson and increase the amount of information absorbed. One of the most natural ways of learning is that of learning-by-doing. Research indicates that participating in a learning exercise, activity or experiment in addition to attending a lecture engages a broader array of “multiple intelligences” than relying on lecture alone. Solution: New instructional methods based on real-world authentic learning and authentic assessment methods will require a new form of instructional space suggested by studio-based learning settings common in art education. Provide locations for the generation and storage of semester long projects as well as student portfolios. Include space for individual, small group, and larger group productions, including but not limited to audio/visual/digital studios, dance and performance studios, workshops for various visual arts, photocopy machines, and large open project tables. Adjacent to the portfolio process studio, provide flexible experimental lab stations for groups or individuals to explore and demonstrate discoveries in the physical and biological sciences. Include moveable laboratory furnishings, storage space for equipment, and visibility and ease of movement through out the space.
 * Educational Design Principle No. 18: Provide Studios to Support Project-based Learning**

Problem: Information technology is rapidly becoming ubiquitous in our society and has become an essential tool for business and industry. Information technology is precipitating a variety of changes in both the organizational and physical structures of our schools. In the goal of integrating information technology into present school curricula, a variety of changes are being experienced. With respect to curriculum content and structure, technology is driving the curriculum in many schools to become more integrated between disciplines. With respect to instructional processes, technology is driving the movement toward self-directed learning and individualized instruction. Solution: Although learning has become increasingly more virtual and web-based, it still must physically take place somewhere. At present, information technology is often unevenly distributed in isolated computer labs in schools with a few computers scattered around the school building in instructional areas and media centers. As information technology becomes more available, technology should become more decentralized within the school/community facility. Create integrated, flexible and complementary virtual learning spaces and distance learning programs that support and supplement the physical school and community learning center. Provide digital, audio, video, and computer links to and within all parts of the community learning center and to tertiary learning centers and sources such as business and community organizations, community colleges, and institutions of higher learning. Butterfield, E. (1999, May). Planning today for tomorrow's technology. Designshare. http://www.designshare.com/Research/Meeks/MeeksTech1.htm
 * Educational Design Principle No. 23: Weave Together Virtual and Physical Learning Spaces**

Problem: Natural light and artificial full-spectrum lighting have been found to minimize mental fatigue as well as reduce hyperactivity in children. Studies have shown that students tend to react more positively to classrooms that have windows. Further, it has been found that fluorescent lighting may be related to greater amounts of stress and hyperactivity in learners. By installing full-spectrum lighting and maximizing controlled natural daylighting, schools may not only improve student performance but also achieve more responsible economic and energy conscious buildings. Solution: Maximize task-appropriate lighting. Eliminate standard cold-white fluorescent lighting, and emphasize natural and full-spectrum lighting throughout the school/community center. When siting the building and deciding on the internal placement of nested learning groups, face indoor activity spaces toward the most favorable microclimatic directions, e.g., south-facing activity spaces leading to outdoor learning areas that are also in the most favorable microclimatic locations.
 * Educational Design Principle No. 28: Maximize Natural and Full-Spectrum Lighting**

Problem: It is well accepted in the scientific community, that prolonged exposure to high-intensity noise in community or work settings is often harmful to the health and behavior of large segments of the exposed populations. Noise in the learning environment can originate from within as well as outside the school building and can be both short and long-term. Both forms of noise can have major affects on student behavior and in some cases, achievement. Studies have concluded there are significant increases in blood pressure associated with schools being near noisy urban streets. Exposure to traffic noise at elementary schools also has been associated with deficits in mental concentration, increased errors on difficult tasks, and greater likelihood of abandoning tasks before the time allocated has expired. Noise may, for example, decrease teaching time by forcing teachers to continuously pause or by making it difficult for the student and teacher to hear one another. Solution: Whenever possible, provide sound absorbing materials on floors, walls and ceilings, locate schools away from noisy and congested urban streets, separate active noisy areas in the school from quiet study areas. Within instructional areas provide acoustical barriers that diminish the effects of different sounds, noises and speech patterns that distract learners from focusing. Provide acoustically controlled, well-defined areas within a single instructional area that respond to the special learning activities requiring concentration such as self-directed study and individual reading areas.
 * Educational Design Principle No. 30: Design for Appropriate Acoustics**