ISB’s New Math Quad

Over the past couple of years, the ISB high school has seen many changes. Many of these considerations differ from ISB’s landscape in the past so the school can adapt to student’s constantly changing learning needs. ISB’s Learning Spaces Designer Mrs. Harter has taken many of these needs into consideration with the learning hub, and has shared her plans for the new renovations being made to the math quad.

1) What is going to become of the Math Quad? What “learning” considerations have gone into those changes?

“There have been a couple of objectives with this quad that we have pursued. We have learned a lot about our classroom spaces and how we want to make learning more visible. We used to have closed doors and you could not see into classrooms but there is no reason for that. To watch people learn and be engaged in learning helps and we want to expose that more, so there are some things that we have tried to do with the math quad and the new classrooms.

One is to improve size, some classes are very small, some are very big, yet most math classes in the high school are of a similar size, so we would like to standardize the size of the class rooms. We will also put big glass panels at the entrance of each classroom so that classes do not need to be interrupted when someone needs to look in, but it is still very connected visually with the outside spaces, which is something that we really value now throughout our school.

One of the biggest problems with this school is that it was built nearly thirty years ago and there were quads all over the place. That was fine then, but now as we learn how we learn, being segregated into separate classrooms and not being connected to others while we learn does not help us as much. We have learned that open classrooms, connected classrooms or classes that spill out into open spaces and provide flexibility is far more valuable. The problem is we have these quads and air conditioned class rooms. We can not just open the doors and spill out of these classrooms. We have to think carefully of how we can create these collaborative communal spaces with what we have.

Last year we enclosed the student services hub and you can see that it has been really successful. Kids love to be there. It is air conditioned, it is a beautiful environment, it is different with the glass ceiling and I think that if you ask your friends and see for yourself that it was a success.”

2) Are there any other highlights that you would like to share?

“I guess making use of the rooftop so we can create more communal space but also, one of the things about our internal spaces is the natural light, so we worked so hard to try and get as much natural light in there. Another cool feature is the glass ceiling with a roof floor on top where you can look down and see the classes and study areas below.

We have the teacher’s work room which is all glass so there is a lot of visibility and many teachers there to support you if you need any help. Some small little meeting rooms in case you need absolute silence to think, have a private conversation or work on a project with a fellow student.

We have talked a lot about three classrooms that will have doors to the outside as well to try and connect it to the external environment, or having external doors all the way around but we also have to consider security in our school as well. We want the school to be as safe as possible and there is not a lot of supervision on that side of the school so we are very mindful of that and we feel this is a very safe way for us to work around that.”

3) Do you have any blueprints or pictures which might give our readers a sense of what to expect?