Learning Environments

Enhancing Learning Spaces with Environmental Graphics

Thoughtfully integrating environmental graphics within learning environments improves the physical space and provides a positive visual and emotional influence on students, staff, and faculty. Explore new ways to communicate a school’s vision through this medium with inspiring results.

Donald Suthard  |  Stephen Zuber, AIA, LEED AP
Community Engagement/Equity

Diversified Learning:Designing for Equitable + Inclusive Learning Spaces

Design attributes should be considerate of people with physical, emotional, generational, or cultural differences. Design should celebrate our differences as an opportunity for learning. Recognition and accommodation will lead to comfortable, welcoming, and inclusive learning environments and successful student experiences.

Shannon Dowling, AIA, LEED AP
Space and Pedagogy

Promoting Physical Distance, Not Social DistanceAdapting Classrooms Post-COVID-19

Reopening schools in a post-Covid-19 context requires not just that we find ways to adapt our existing classrooms to accommodate new safety concerns, but that we continue to facilitate communication and flexibility in our learning spaces.

Erica Gaswirth, AIA, LEED AP  |  James D. Seger AIA, LEED AP  |  Serena Losonczy, AIA, LEED AP
Member Spotlight

Meet Lauren Karwowski Magee

What does it take to be successful during a pandemic? Learn how Lauren Magee, Director of Architecture and Environmental Design at Guidecraft, an EDmarket member company combined her talents as a parent, early childhood expert, architect and educator to meet the unique challenges so many of us are facing while working at home.

Lauren Karwoski Magee
President’s Perspective

Giving Communities the Confidence to Re-Open Schools

COVID-19 has made cleaning and sanitizing protocols for our schools more important than ever. Certifying both facility professionals and the buildings themselves will give parents, teachers and students needed assurance that schools are doing all they can to prevent infection.

Jim McGarry
Sales & Marketing

Your Best Ever Back-to-School Catalog2020 May Prove Our Biggest Marketing Challenge

More than ever before our fall catalogs have to be the best they can be. Especially those catalogs designed for direct marketing. These catalogs have to sell our products or motivate educators to reach out to our customer service representatives.

Bob Stimolo
Educational Funding

Trust is a Must for a Successful Referendum

When trust is broken between a community and its school district, it is difficult to be aspirational. Inadequate and failing facilities can be a trust breaker between school districts and the people they serve but it takes money to replace aging facilities and meet growing demands. Before you can move forward, it’s important to work on rebuilding trust and reviving and repairing strained relations.

Dr. Melanie Oppor  |  Jody Andres, AIA LEED AP
Environmental / Healthy Classrooms

What Does Designing for Distance Look Like in Schools?

Knowing that the health and safety of students, teachers, and staff is paramount, it makes sense to seriously consider physical interventions within the school building. Visual reminders—via floor design or via more temporary signage—can play a large role in creating a sense of psychological security and influence safer behavior.

Paula Meason
Sales & Marketing

K-12 Education and the Coronavirus Pandemic: Highlights from a National Survey

The coronavirus pandemic has caused dramatic changes in how K‑12 districts and schools in the U.S. are operating and in their outlook for the 2020-2021 school year. Providers of education products and services have an informal sense of some of the challenges their clients are facing, and the education media offer stories of how teachers and administrators are coping.

Ellen Bialo
Higher Ed

The Future is Now:How the Pandemic Demands New Strategies for Higher Education Facilities

In the midst of planning to re-populate a campus for this fall, looking forward beyond December — let alone 2025 — may seem impossible. But failing to seize this opportunity risks not only missing a singular moment to correct course, but also jeopardizing the future of the organization.

Bryan C. Harvey  |  Pete Zuraw
Technology

Saving Money on Your Next Capital Improvement ProjectInvolving Tech Leaders Early Prevents Avoidable Mistakes

As school systems are increasingly complex and interconnected, overlooking something relatively minor in the planning phases of capital improvement projects could have far-reaching implications—especially in the realm of technology. Ensuring system compatibility and avoiding costly mistakes could be as simple as involving the technology team earlier in the planning phases.

Christina Lewellen
Sales & Marketing

Brands Beware: Online Seller Red Flags

The brick-and-mortar stores that don’t wave the white flag will need to adopt omni-channel strategies in order to survive. But no matter how this shakes out, new online stores are coming. And there will be a lot of them.

Ron Solomon
Technology

Leveraging STEM and Makerspaces During the COVID-19 Crisis

Prior to the Covid-19 crisis, many schools made the investment to bring true STEM learning into the classroom. With facilities shutdown for an undetermined amount of time how can these spaces be leveraged to deliver a STEM experience?

Greg Herker  |  James Bingham