If learning is to be constant, Space, Time, Technology, Pedagogy, Curriculum must be the Variables

Pam Moran (@pammoran) is currently superintendent of Albemarle County Public Schools and President of the Virginia Association of School Superintendents. She holds a doctoral degree from the University of Virginia.

Ira Socol (@irasocol) is completing his doctoral degree at Michigan State and has studied and taught in the School of Architecture at the Pratt Institute as well as at Grand Valley State College and Michigan State University. He has extensive experience working with implementation of assistive technologies and Universal Design for Learning in school divisions. He now partners with schools on the development, design, and implementation of contemporary learning spaces.

Socol and Moran have been pursuing the idea of “The Iridescent Classroom” for the past two years, imagining a space without boundaries of opportunity but with enclosures for safety and security, without traditional spatial and temporal constraints, but with supports, mentoring, and contagious creativity, without teaching walls and hierarchies, but with a constant sharing and the construction of community cognition.

“The Iridescent Classroom” is transparent, and it glows with the learning work of students. It exists in real form, in cyberspace, and in the shared imagination of its learning community. It is a place where students learn to be individuals, collaborators, scholars, citizens, learners, teachers, effective leaders, and effective followers by experiencing all of these roles.

The move toward “The Iridescent Classroom” builds on years of work in schools that embed concepts of learning theory. Grounded in TPACK and years of observation of the entire population of students, from gifted to special needs and beyond to those who have avoided school altogether, the use of Space, not Place increases traditional measures of achievement while building critical thinking skills, critical analysis skills, and global collaboration skills.