MIDDLE SCHOOL
Embedded Files
CORE CLASSROOMS
Kalo: As the primary nutritional staple and ancestral foundation of Hawaiʻi, the kalo represents the essential academic nourishment provided within these walls. These spaces are designed to function as the lo'i of learning, where the fundamental knowledge and skills necessary for a student’s growth are cultivated and sustained.
Overview
Overview
The concept of a Learning Neighborhood reimagines educational space design to promote collaboration, independence, and cultural connection. Locating Core Team Classrooms clustered near each other with increased visibility between spaces creates a dynamic environment that nurtures a sense of community, academic and personal growth, with opportunities for connection to the outdoors. With the HIDOE's values of Nā Hopena Aʻo (HĀ)—Belonging, Responsibility, Excellence, Aloha, Total Well-being, and Hawaiʻi—these neighborhoods should try to support the development of the whole student.
Each Grade Level is a Learning Neighborhood comprised of Teams. Each Team includes 3 General Classrooms, 1 Science Lab and a SPED Resource Room. These Teams break down the scale of a large school. Students are part of a Team and take all four Core curriculum classes as a group. Students know their peers, which often leads to better attendance and engagement in learning, greater academic success and stronger social-emotional health. The Core teachers also benefit from the proximity, enabling co-planning, co-teaching, and mentoring that enhances instruction and student support.
Core Classrooms and Science Labs should be designed for flexible learning, easily adaptable to various activities and student groupings. Teaching and learning have shifted away from lecture-style education to student digital research, small group projects that encourage collaboration, discussion, and presentation of learning. All of these activities should be able to occur in any part of the classroom or beyond.
Designing a Learning Neighborhood with a common shared space provides a connecting space for students, teachers, and learning activities and a flexible hub for collaboration, exploration, creation, reflection, or presentation to support diverse learning styles.
Outdoor-centered neighborhoods can be especially impactful where the natural environment is both a classroom and a cultural asset. Courtyards or learning gardens can host science experiments, cultural practices, or quiet reflection.
A small faculty hub is provided for each grade level as a support space to be collocated with staff restrooms. Consider the possibility of stacking Learning Neighborhoods by grade level to conserve outdoor space and provide building efficiencies.
Adjacency Diagram
Adjacency Diagram
Note:
Diagrams are not drawn to scale and should not be read as floor plan layouts.
Space Descriptions
Space Descriptions
4.01 Classroom, Core Team
Activities include brief instruction or project introduction, research, discussion, creation, reflection, presentation and demonstration of knowledge through testing
Main Instructional Wall provides infrastructure for a digital screen and whiteboards
Instructional and student presentation space should be possible at other locations to allow for flexible groupings of students
Functional classroom proportions and furniture to support flexible arrangements and visibility to all walls
Mobile student technology stored and charged in carts within the classroom
Transparency beyond the classroom provides supervision of student groups expanding to other areas, and natural daylight
Doors to corridor are recessed into classroom to limit excessive door swings into circulation zones
4.02 Science Classroom / Lab
Movable two-person science tables that can adjust to countertop height, creating peninsula lab stations with tables
Stools to match science table height and promote usage from either sitting or standing position
Provide perimeter lab stations with larger deep sinks (and sink covers) on three walls
Open area in the middle of classroom for potential non-lab work—independent or small group research, or small group collaboration
No gas needed at lab stations
Singular water shutoff for all sinks preferred by teachers
Confirm need of fume hood, and this likely only at 8th grade level
Easy and supervisable access to outside
Space for safety equipment like goggles, eyewash and emergency shower
Balanced use of upper and lower cabinetry to allow for some free wall space
4.02A Science Prep Room (Shared)
Required for each Science Classroom / Lab but can be shared between two depending on design
Place for teachers to store materials, prep and clean up
Need refrigerator, large sink, countertop, and base cabinet
Large full-height open storage shelves for kits and bins of materials
Hazardous chemical storage cabinets
4.03 Instructional Commons, per Team
Flexible open space serving as the center of the Core Classroom Team
Can be indoors or outside but must have strong visible connection to classrooms and, at times, acoustic connection to allow for continuous supervision
Adjacent courtyard / lanai often works best for large groups
Shade protection critical for outdoor learning spaces
Ensure adequate seating and lighting for activities
4.04 Toilet, Single (Student)
See Typical Spaces, Toilet
4.05 Faculty Hub
Serves as staff work area, professional development or collaboration, and a break / lunch area
Space should be easily reconfigurable to accommodate professional development meetings, work/layout tables, and/or lunch groupings
Room to have kitchenette for refrigerated food storage and warming
Work area allows for access to supplies and some preparation for class learning activities. More extensive preparation or production of class learning manipulatives can take place in the Library Work Room
4.06 Toilet, Single (Staff)
See Typical Spaces, Toilet
Adjacency Diagram
Adjacency Diagram
Master Charts
Master Charts
Furniture Lists
Furniture Lists
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