Classrooms-- Modern or Traditional

"Lefebvre (1991) saw a critical link between the spaces of our daily reality and the production of the  particular social form and relations envisaged by the dominant society, leading Chapman, Randell Moon, Campbell, and Drew (2014) to suggest we ask critical questions ‘regarding the ways in which  schools and classrooms restructure education to actively constitute production and governance in the  knowledge society’ (p. 46)." In this quote space,  is recognised as socially constructed and integral to the educational process.

Lefebvre’s (1991) notion of space as a social product, suggests that space is a place of relation reflecting  wider social and economic relations. It is easy to be dazzled by the newness and originality of the modern flexible buildings, not to mention their integration of technology. If, however, following Lefebvre,  one attempts to imagine the human relationships that combined in the first instance to conceptualise,  then create the space, and in the second, to sustain it, then one sees these buildings with new eyes. It is  also important to reflect on the kind of relationships the flexible learning spaces generate and sustain. 

Currently along with traditional classrooms, there are

Modern learning environment (MLE):

a classroom that is different to the traditional style of rows of desks facing a teacher.

Innovative learning environment (ILE):

a collaborative, flexible classroom that can evolve to meet the needs of a rapidly-changing society. It covers teaching style and technology, as well as lighting and colour.

Flexible learning environment (FLE):

physical classroom design, encompassing light and colour, furniture, and how pupils and teachers are able to move between spaces.

What do Modern Learning Environments look like?

The learning areas are well lit, but not glaring, shedding softer light than might be associated with  the kind of

fluorescent lighting typical of many standard classrooms.

Sound is muted, despite the  congregation of such a large group of students.

The walls communicate a teaching narrative. The walls could also communicated the narrative of progress and surveillanceTT

The function and significance of furniture marks the greatest difference between the modern and the traditional.

As Sullivan (2012)  notes, collaborative teaching and learning requires flexible furniture that can be easily moved to match  the activity, and be used in multiple ways. Furniture ought to be designed so that the classroom is an  inviting and engaging space. In contrast, regular classroom furniture is ‘one size for all’, disregarding,  for example, gender differences for body position and posture.

To this mix are discursive practices that have arisen in connection with furnishings and their placement. The placement of tables and chairs, often boardroom style, is a place where a ‘workshop’ can take  place, facilitated by a teacher, or, more appropriately, a ‘learning advisor’ or ‘coach’. A private space off  to the side for a small group to work together is a ‘breakout space’. Students use imagery to help label the space ( David Thornburg's three archetypal learning spaces) campfire, watering hole, cave. Teachers think about space and classroom arrangement as ‘redolent’ with symbol and imagery. They dictate a certain kind of behaviour as typical and as ‘appropriate’, such as generating a consensus between the open spaces and the imperative to collaborate. 

Lefebvre presented space as hyper-complex and characterised by crosscurrents and tensions, and this is reflected in the uneasy transition  from traditional to modern in teachers’ practice. An awkward friction exists at the junction of interior  space (teachers’ mental and emotional commitments), physical space (nature, or for these purposes,  the built environment) and social space (the space of speech, communication and collaboration). The  transition from one kind of physical space (the single-cell classroom) to another (the flexible learning  space) requires a transition of inner space that makes the physical shift very difficult.

Taken from

Is the classroom obsolete in the 21st century? - ResearchGate