4 Benefits of Active Learning Environments
Traditional classroom design is in transition, with the integration of technology, personalized learning, collaboration, and the implementation of a learner-centered approach being at the core of the conversation. This shift in design mirrors the needs of the modern workplace, helping to prepare students for next-generation careers and empowering them with the skills necessary to be successful in their future positions.
The active learning environments created with these considerations in mind offer flexible furniture and mobile elements that support a wide variety of learning approaches and activities. When students learn in these spaces, they build important life and career skills that aid them in their personal lives and future professional endeavors. Here are 4 benefits of active learning environments:
Improved Creativity
Active learning spaces provide students with the physical and mental space and freedom to open up their thinking, creatively engaging with new ideas. Flexible furniture and multi-use spaces allow for self-led learning, where students participate in assignments in the ways they are most engaged. Active learning spaces enable students to fully engage with creative activities using skills such as elaboration, refinement, analysis, and evaluation of original ideas to maximize creative efforts.
Greater Engagement and Critical Thinking
Through increasing engagement, promoting self-led learning, and transforming thinking, active learning spaces provide students with skills and mindsets that improve their critical thinking abilities. Students who actively engage in critical thinking with cognitive thought problems find more success in active learning environments than in a traditional classroom due to transformed ways of thinking that are caused by flexible learning spaces and new pedagogy.
Increased Collaboration
Collaboration is a big part of the modern workplace, and active learning environments equip students with the skills necessary for productive collaboration in their future careers. Active learning environments provide sufficient learning spaces to accommodate multiple group sizes –– from partners to small groups, to full-class participation –– giving students a range of collaborative experiences to enhance their learning and build a strong foundation of collaboration skills.
More Effective Communication
Active learning environments enable students to better participate in direct communication with peers and teachers in the classroom. Classrooms with flexible furniture provide greater opportunity for students to engage in activities that require communication. The skills learned through these interactions are important for students’ long-term personal and professional development and achievement.
These benefits of active learning environments, often referred to as “the four C’s” by education professionals, help to drive higher levels of student engagement and academic achievement. Creating new active learning environments with flexible furniture in combination with supporting new pedagogy, curriculum, and personalization with technology results in learning spaces that prepare students for future careers that demand creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication skills.
To learn more about active learning environments and the benefits these spaces produce, read the MiEN Company white paper below,