School Design

Not just a step along the way.

At PAST we think of school design as a community endeavor that is aimed at relevant, meaningful, and fluid educational shift. School done well is engaging, transdisciplinary, and problem based, where the teacher is a facilitator of meaningful problem solving through 21st century skills. School is not just preparation for life; it is a significant part of life itself.

The many, many possibilities of Design

New schools; transforming schools; teacher cohorts; schools within schools; after-school programs; academies; institutions. The PAST Design Team has expertise in every iteration of educational organization, guiding administrators through the myriad of crucial questions inherent in School Design. If you were to rethink your school, what would problems would you try to solve? What currently missing elements would you seek to add? How would you define a “classroom”? Who would be teaching, and who would be learning? PAST is interested in developing strategic plans for the 21st century school.

How does PAST help institutions implement changes?

PAST teams assist teachers to partner with implementation of innovative programs from beginning to end. Embedding a PAST Anthropologist in a program means real-time knowledge capture and the ability to make programmatic adjustments to assure success. PAST Anthropologists share a distinctive system of development that starts at the fundamentals of defining the optimum school culture and habits and builds on that foundation. From introducing the principles of design through planning, implementing, sharing, and sustaining programs, PAST school design is carefully scaffolded.

Getting it going: Research and planning

PAST anthropologists research school culture and habits, and apply the design principles to their aspirations. Capstone Topics and Programs are next addressed, followed by Brainstorming Project Ideas. These projects create solutions through identifying networks to contain Networked Projects and community and industry partners who can come alongside the educational community.

Implementation: The nuts and the bolts

Transdisciplinary learning that connects all content areas becomes the next focus of the PAST design team. The projects must align with appropriate benchmarks, an involved process in which PAST excels. Backmapping those programs and projects comes next, ensuring that all areas have been addressed. Finally, evaluation rubrics are put in place for the programs implemented in that system.

Sharing, Scaling, and Sustaining Projects

Promoting projects becomes a priority of the PAST design team, beginning with a post-program brainstorm. Scaling strategies for larger or smaller communities is considered, as is scaling up or down grade levels.