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How Can Education Thrive in a Post-COVID Era?
On August 4th, we partnered with Steelcase and the DLR Group to host a virtual round table with some of our education clients to gain an understanding of the concerns, ideas, and hopes for education in the post-COVID era. We’re thankful to those who were able to join despite Hurricane Isaias and missed those who could not.
Steelcase has created a guide to navigate post-COVID learning spaces. The guide draws on their diverse network of global education clients, thought leaders and experts in the effort of exploring and understanding how learning and teaching will be affected.
The DLR Group conducted interviews and engagement surveys to research and understand both what K-12 education and higher education will look like in the upcoming fall, as well as in the future. Their K-12 findings are a result of 150+ interviews that represented 77 school districts, 18 states, and 2,620,050 students across the continent. Their Higher Education Engagement Report results are from 120 interviews with 85 institutions, with 1.6 million students being represented.
Review the DLR Group’s and Steelcase’s findings here.
We discovered common thinking and trends across both K-12 and higher education:
- The situation is fluid. As a result, institutions need to be agile and flexible, ready to adapt to the ever-changing circumstances. New information and science is learned every day, which continues to impact the decisions for the upcoming school year and beyond.
- This is an opportunity to rethink education. Redesigning how pedagogy, space, and technology come together can better serve today’s students and improve their educational experiences.
- Education will change; it will be different. There is no doubt that things will not go back to the way they were, which is a good thing! Now is the time to ask: What do we want to become, and how will we get there?
Our panelists:
Marisa Sergnese – Principal, Steelcase Education: Marisa’s extensive experience as a certified teacher, school administrator and education consultant support her interactions with both teachers and higher education instructors to develop and implement active learning environments.
Jim French, FAIA – Senior Principal, Global K-12 Education Leader, DLR Group: Throughout his career, Jim has exclusively served school districts and education clients, offering unparalled expertise in the planning and design of future-ready environments that support the whole child.
Danile DeBoo, AIA – NE Higher Education Leader, DLR Group: Danile’s 30-year career has fostered whole campus development to promote thriving learning and living communities. Danile guides projects while mentoring architects to be global designers embracing sustainability, timelessness, and economic responsive practice.
Steve Lang – President & CEO, dancker: Steve’s customer-centric philosophy informed the clear, strategic blueprint that was developed to build a strong and sustainable market leadership position for dancker, a nearly 200-year old commercial interiors organization, providing architectural, furniture, technology and logistical solutions for the spaces where people work, learn and heal.
Download the summary transcript of the round table discussion here.