By Carol P. Bartold     

Aug. 26, 2015:  Innovation and flexibility in curriculum and delivery are being significantly enhanced at the Bronxville High School. Two brand-new learning spaces featuring state-of-the-art technology and non-traditional classroom furniture designed for small- or large-group collaboration will help both students and teachers discover ways to rethink how to learn, share, and present material.

The new learning spaces will be available to any teacher in any discipline, according to Ann Meyer, Bronxville High School principal. "I want anyone who wants to try these new spaces to be able to use them," she said. "There are no barriers."

The new configurations of the rooms feature:

• Round tables

• Movable seating for collaboration

• High counter space with stools that will allow students to work face to face and put the teacher at eye level with them.

• Soft seating areas in both rooms.

Occupancy of each room will increase from approximately 32 students to 40.

"I wanted to think about how we create opportunities for innovation for both students and teachers," said Meyer.

A specially designed "fire pit" in one of the spaces is a curved unit that has soft seating on its lower level and a countertop on an upper level behind the soft seating that will accommodate laptop computers. The unit faces a white wall, one of several featured in both new learning spaces. Projectors will produce seven-foot wide laser grids that will allow the white walls to function as computer touch screens.

With the help of a Bronxville School Foundation grant in 2014, Meyer formed an Innovation Fellows cohort of teachers who met regularly, experimented in their traditional classrooms, studied literature about innovations in education, and discussed what forms new instruction might take in Bronxville. They visited Horace Greeley High School's iLab in Chappaqua, innovative learning spaces at the Avenues School in Manhattan, and Google's Manhattan offices.

"We realized that teachers are doing innovative things in their classrooms," Meyer said, "but they're limited by desks and chairs in a static classroom space."

The Innovation Fellows were able to use a portion of their grant money to hire architects Fielding Nair International, who designed the iLab at Horace Greeley High School, to create some flexible, pioneering designs for Bronxville High School.

"My one constraint was that they could not break down walls," Meyer said, a challenge for the architects, as they are accustomed to working in more modern spaces and on new construction. She added that the Bronxville project helped the architects realize what they can accomplish within one room.

Meyer applied for, and received, a Foundation grant of approximately $88,000 to reconfigure three classrooms, outfit them with technology, and appoint them with furniture designed to allow both students and teachers to experiment with innovative ideas for units, curriculum, and course offerings.

Two of those classrooms will be ready for use for the 2015-2016 school year. One completed new learning space is on the second floor near the library, and the other is in the science and math wing. The third classroom earmarked for reconfiguration will connect one completed, innovative space with the library and complement the redesign of the library.

"What's going to happen eventually," Meyer said, "is that we will probably move to a model allowing teachers to design their own courses to take place in spaces like this." She noted that a professional developer who worked with teachers over the summer in imagining how to use the new learning spaces will return for two days in October to observe learning in the spaces and work with faculty who have used the areas to determine what worked and how lesson plans might be changed to better utilize the new facilities.

Meyer related that Horace Greeley students told the Innovation Fellows that they feel more adult when they are in the iLab because they feel more in charge of their own learning. "I think we want to create something like that," she said, "where coming in here is not the same as walking into a classroom full of desks."

Pictured here:  Bronxville High School principal Ann Meyer in front of white wall in new learning space room.

Photos by A. Warner