As teacher educators, the authors visit numerous learning environments. Each school has its own unique characteristics and personality. Some schools seem to have a magnetic draw, filling the senses with energy, wonder and intrigue. This energy, writes the authors, stems from a symbiotic relationship, a flow of spaces that work together…

A proposal to carefully examine some current thinking on early learning and attempts to project their implications into the design of a unique learning facility that would offer a supportive and stimulating environment for young children two to six years of age, providing for their individual needs and differences. The concepts examined were…

The annual conference encouraged communication among individuals and disciplines relating to long-range development of institutions of higher education. Ideas, comments, and major speeches were assembled and published. Major areas of interest following the introduction are--(1) college and university planning in Canada, (2) the educational…

Part of a seven-volume series on children's environments, this monograph is a design guide for policy, planning, programming, design, and evaluation of early childhood facilities. The design guide includes 115 patterns for large, medium, and small child care centers in neighborhood and work-place settings. Many of the patterns are appropriate also…

Discusses how large hollow blocks can meet many preschool children's learning needs through creative dramatic play, and also gives some guidelines on how these blocks can be constructed by parents and teachers. (BB)

Topic Maps, ISO/IEC 13250 standard, are designed to facilitate the organization and navigation of large collections of information objects by creating meta-level perspectives of their underlying concepts and relationships. The underlying structure of concepts and relations is expressed by domain ontologies. The Topics Maps technology can become…

This is an update of the 1973 edition of a guide for energy conservation in schools. This Educational Facilities Laboratories publication is an information source for teachers, school administrators, school maintenance personnel, school designers, or anyone interested in conserving energy in schools. Topics discussed include: (1) life-cycle…

The results of a project undertaken to assist the Office of Facilities of the State University of New York in the development of design and planning criteria for "learning spaces" with particular emphasis on the considerations for seating, lighting and acoustics. The learning spaces referred to are classified as large group instructional…

The purpose of this article is to examine issues related to the design of training programs for educational personnel. An educational training program consists of sets of planned experiences offered in a prescribed sequence and manner but involves other factors as well, since a training program is an environment going beyond the explicit content…

School administrators can make changes in schools that will help students learn more effectively. Among these changes are improvements in landscaping, teaching spaces, and storage space. In addition, provisions for a community lounge and spaces for volunteers and the custodial crew will increase the quality of the school environment. (MLF)

Discusses issues of instructional design for information literacy in the distance environment. Examines the selection of technologies for effective distance learning; ways active learning approaches can be incorporated into distance education information literacy classes; and ways of assessing information literacy learning outcomes in a distance…

Reviews some of the cross-cultural factors that should be considered in the design of interactive learning environments such as computer simulations and games. Highlights include cross-cultural differences in learning and the use of technology; cross-cultural attitudes toward technology; computer anxiety; and a methodology for culture-centered…

In this article, the author talks about the importance of competence and how to be competent. Feeling competent is pretty important to a person in the places where he lives and works. Competence is also important to kids. That sense of "I can do it" fuels the child's drive to explore and succeed well. However, competence is always a moving target…

There has been growing interest in the design of campus environments. Since environments are related to growth and/or dysfunction, a program designed to heighten the fit between students and their environment is advantageous. The Resident Environment Adaption Program (REAP) is a five stage service designed to enable students to heighten the fit…

This article on the purposes, process, frequency, and instruments of educational facility evaluation emphasizes the importance of obtaining data on the effect a facility has upon its users. Four references are provided. (DCS)