Westlake High School, Eanes Independent School District, Austin, TX
Project Goal: help teachers develop design and ethnography skills required to initiate a learning spaces pilot experience.
Description: Westlake High School is beginning a year-long process to access the impact of new furniture in traditional classroom spaces. Two major furniture manufacturers are represented and will be tested in 25+ classrooms, with the intent of making a decision about going school-wide with new classroom furniture.
What's Interesting? What will be the impact of new furniture that is agile and flexible? What will be the impact on teaching and learning? How will classroom management be impacted? What happens when teachers become teacher-designer-ethnographer? How will students be involved in designing spaces, and how will student choice in how they use space become part of the Westlake culture? How will Eanes make decisions about going to scale from information provided by a systemic, top-down evaluation as well as an organic, teacher-driven analysis of the pilot experience.