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and with businesses sharing resources such as video-conferencing, IT help and staff
mentoring learners to raise their aspirations.
Classroom designs need to be flexible to support different pedagogical
approaches. In this context architects, developers and installers need to work with
staff of schools and colleges, learners and parents. The scenarios in this topic and
this chapter present a range of challenges for education professionals who would
have to manage such changes in schools, colleges and in communities. Teacher
training too has to provide the teachers with the ability to meet the challenge of
technology-supported learning.
The all-encompassing learning platforms that support the new approaches of
innovative schools require a physical environment (time and space) that is fit for pur-
pose and staff who have high levels of pedagogical understanding of how and why to
use technologies to support learning.
Managing the human resources available is much more complex than any other
challenge in the management of change. Creating a clear vision is a first step to
engaging stakeholders in change and development, and the information in this text
is intended to help the reader to develop a vision for their area of responsibility, whether
they are an individual teacher, a leader of a curriculum area, a head of department or
a senior school leader or policy-maker.
The vision does have to consider spaces and how they will be deployed, as the
use of space affects the kinds of pedagogies which can be employed. For example,
to what extent will open workspaces or 'productivity corners' become the norm
with individuals and groups drawing on Web-based materials and working on
personalized schedules and with teaching of core concepts to large groups, small
groups or individuals organized as necessary to meet personal needs? Might walls
be used as touch screens with wireless connectivity provided, inside and out. Will
rooms such as the one in Emirates Stadium in London, which is designed with
white slanted walls that can be written on and used as a desk, become the norm?
These kinds of stimulating learning environments, both physical and virtual, are
available in some schools now, but other schools and colleges are still working on
a traditional didactic knowledge-transfer pedagogy producing, it is argued, young
people more fitted for working in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries than
the twenty-first.
Theory and research base
Anyone engaged in changing practice with large groups of people needs an under-
standing of management of change theory, which includes motivation theories.
There is a plethora of advice on the Web as well as a major international industry of
change consultants advising businesses on change management.
However, the principles are relatively simple:
· create a vision
· create and implement a strategy for realizing the vision
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