Contact: Maridith Geuder
The ways building designs can affect the learning process, student motivation and safety are the focus of a new Mississippi State research and service collaboration.
The Educational Design Institute, a joint project of the College of Education and the School of Architecture, is working with students, parents, educators and communities to plan for Mississippi's schools of the future, said director Jeff Lackney.
"Our goal is to provide services that help raise the level of awareness about educational facilities planning," the assistant professor of educational leadership said. "Buildings often have been viewed as a backdrop for learning, but research shows that the physical setting has a profound effect on both the quality and the process of learning."
The Adequate Education Act of 1997 provided resources to modernize and expand classrooms around Mississippi. Lackney said the EDI "is here to support these and other design efforts in the state."
With assistance from assistant professor John Poros of architecture's Small Town Center, Lackney is working on a variety of research and outreach projects with state school districts. Both emphasize that the institute is not intended as a substitute for professional architecture services.
"We're here to help schools and communities think through issues and establish linkages," Poros said.
By collaborating with communities on ways school design supports educational goals, the center will work to encourage creation of safe, accessible, innovative, and learner-centered environments, Lackney said.
"We're seeing a number of innovations in Mississippi, such as outdoor learning environments that don't restrict learning to the classroom itself," he observed. "In the future, we anticipate seeing schools become much more flexible in their use of space and time."
In the year since its founding, EDI has worked on planning projects with schools around the state, among them Meridian, Tupelo and Starkville. It also has assisted the state Department of Education in developing a school design and planning guide and has conducted surveys of more than 1,000 public school buildings to see how communities use the facilities.
A current research project funded by MSU's Office of Research is exploring how master teachers use classroom space.