Planning for a new facility provides an exciting opportunity to establish a holistic educational vision. Educational visioning is a collaborative process that results in a comprehensive planning tool for a school district, setting the direction for learning and the facilities that support it. It has always been evident that teachers are brokers of knowledge, so it is imperative that the buildings we design foster and facilitate the modalities and teaching styles of educators. GPD is proud to provide and facilitate Educational Visioning as part of our service as we walk through this process together with the district’s representative stakeholders, ideally comprised of administrators, educators, students and community members.
Transforming Learning & Teaching
In these evolving times, the role of “teacher” continues to be reformed within each school district. Accordingly, the building industry needs to be flexible enough to adapt to the needs of education. Effective educational visioning can provide a path forward incorporating elements from best practices, research on learning, and evolving trends in educational delivery. Visioning can incorporate such wisdom and establish a plan for change to improve teaching and learning as well as communication. Such change often has the added benefit of improving the social-emotional aspects of school as well as relationships in school and between the school and the community.
GPD’s Process and Recent Experience
Engaging a wide spectrum of participants in a team of about 30 people in a facilitated workshop (or workshops) allows for a transparent process of understanding differing viewpoints with the goal of generating a direction in which to move forward. The process of visioning can make the work of educational planning exciting, developing unanimity among participants, and creating interest and inspiration in the school and the community. In a typical workshop, participants collaborate on analyzing existing situations, establishing educational goals, reviewing research on effective teaching and learning, as well as considering school organizational concepts, and establishing implications of these aspects on educational facilities. Allied with this would be cultivating agendas for staff professional development.
GPD recently completed Visioning for the following Ohio School Districts:
- Bedford City School District
- Cloverleaf Local School District
- Triway Local School District
- Wooster City School District
Wooster City School District, Visioning Workshop
Bedford City School District, Visioning Workshop
Wooster City School District, Visioning Workshop
Bedford City School District, Visioning Workshop
Wooster City School District, Visioning Workshop
Bedford City School District, Visioning Workshop
Wooster City School District, Visioning Workshop
Wooster City School District, Visioning Workshop
Wooster City School District, Visioning Workshop
Wooster City School District, Visioning Workshop
Wooster City School District, Visioning Workshop
After GPD conducts a visioning workshop for a school district, a report is developed summarizing the session. We often recommend that a board of education adopt this report to show that the guiding principles established in the visioning session will be the foundation for the rest of the design process. Below is an example of a visioning report summarized for Wooster City School District.
To learn more about GPD’s educational services, visit: https://gpdgroup.com/who-we-serve/public/education/