Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

From Teacher to Student-Centric Learning

  • 01/01/19
NoraNivel furniture

Wallace Elementary School in Johnston, Iowa, integrated NorvaNivel’s furniture collections to help their classrooms move from a teacher-centric to a learner-centric pedagogy.

With the goal to move from teacher-centric to learner-centric pedagogy, Wallace Elementary School in Johnston, Iowa, home to nearly 600 students in grades K-5, created new classrooms and breakout spaces to support its learning community. After a long consideration of suitable furniture for the spaces, school decision makers discovered NorvaNivel and knew they had found a solution. The new learning spaces have empowered students with choice and educators with functionality, allowing them to reconfigure their spaces for different learning activities within seconds.

Despite knowing what they wanted to achieve in the learning spaces, the school felt challenged in realizing its vision for agile learning spaces. Rearranging the existing furniture into a more flexible layout was not delivering on the requirements. Additional furniture they purchased overwhelmed the space and wasn’t comfortable for students.

NorvaNivel has years of experience creating highly-adaptable learning spaces to facilitate contemporary pedagogy. With the goal to create flexible classrooms and breakout areas, school decision-makers saw that NorvaNivel’s furniture could deliver against key requirements.

NorvaNivel used a collection of key products to meet the school’s challenges: The GENGA collection of foam blocks to encourage communication, creativity, and critical thinking; the CONCLAVE Collection of group seating; the STEAMSPACE T-Table collection of collaborative desks; the WORKPAD Caddy a storable and moveable seating solution; and the SUNSHINEONACLOUDYDAY Foldable Table for a dynamic collaborative work and presentation space.

With a choice of flexible seating and work areas, students are empowered to create their own places to learn. Having ownership over their space has made them more comfortable and more receptive to learning. Contemporary pedagogies require flexible learning environments. With their new learning spaces, Wallace Elementary can adapt to whatever the curriculum requires.

www.norvanivel.com

This article originally appeared in the School Planning & Management January/February 2019 issue of Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • Tennessee Middle School Completes Health, Life Safety Renovations

    The Giles County Board of Education in Pulaski, Tenn., recently announced that a series of renovation projects has been completed at Bridgeforth Middle School, according to a news release. The district partnered with Wold Architects & Engineers and Brindley Construction to modernize building systems at one of the district’s oldest schools.

  • FGCU Breaks Ground on New Health Sciences Building

    Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) has launched construction on a major new academic facility that leaders say will reshape healthcare education in Southwest Florida for decades to come, according to university news.

  • abstract illustration of school gym

    How the Gymnasium Can Serve as a Model for Learning Space Design

    Multipurpose gyms work because flexibility was built into the brief from the start, not retrofitted later. The same logic applies to academic spaces.

  • Ohio State University Opens 26-Story Hospital

    The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center recently opened in Columbus, Ohio, standing 26 stories and covering 1.9 million square feet, according to a university news release. The project marks ten years of effort and is the university’s largest single-facility construction project ever.