The Students of Tomorrow generally want to combat global concerns such as justice, poverty, and climate change, and they understand that this requires participating in controversial and difficult discussions. This outlook advances their general adaptability. Students of the future favor experience over ownership. For example, one may value using Airbnb to experience a number of destinations over owning a condo in one place. This mirrors their learning style, where most students would prefer to research or invent a solution rather than taught one from a book. Evidence for this trait is visible today in the growing number of startups, where youth think creatively to take initiative and provide products or services that serve the public rather than contribute to an established corporate endeavor. How does one respond to these students and their values in order to set them up for success inside and outside of the classroom? How is education itself changing, and what does this mean for the evolution of modern classroom design?

In years past, students went to school and sat at their desks, facing the front of the room and were lectured. Following a day of classes, students would head home or to the library to complete their individual homework assignments. This method of teaching and learning is considered “passive learning” and rarely required participation or collaboration. Fortunately, educators have moved away from the passive model and today, the evolution of education delivery is in the midst of a dramatic and active transformation…and along with it, the learning environments necessary to facilitate it. The Students of Tomorrow seek “active” learning environments.

As technologies and work flows in different fields rapidly change, increasing value has been placed on teaching students critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Within quickly altering professions, skills such as empathy, collaboration, teamwork, and critical thinking are growing in importance. Furthermore, as more and more jobs in STEM are created, the teaching of digital skills is becoming increasingly mandatory and no longer seen as a bonus. It’s estimated that around 3.5 million STEM jobs will exist in America by 2025, but there is concern that 2 million will not be filled due to a lack of highly skilled workers. Students must cultivate adaptability and technology literacy throughout their education.

As technology rapidly evolves, so does our relationship with it. According to a report done by Google, the amount of time Americans under eight years old spent with mobile devices each day has tripled between 2013 and 2017. Simultaneously, 68% of young people aged twenty-four and under say that they feel guilty or conflicted about spending time on their phones. So, as technology and social media becomes more rapidly accessible to students, how can educational environments promote a healthy relationship with technology? How can schools encourage engagement with technology for its knowledge and collaboration benefits? As described by Vikas Pota, Group CEO of Tmrw Digital and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Varkey Foundation, “Digital citizenship and digital literacy programs are about more than learning how to use something. They must navigate the challenge of encouraging a healthy relationship with technology as a whole.”

So, when considering the best way to prepare students for the outside world, many have turned to focusing on increasing collaboration and student-led learning in the classroom. For example, schools that created an environment with one-to-one device programs, flipped classes, blended classrooms, and committed to buying only modular and movable furniture quickly saw higher attendance, more engagement, fewer disciplinary issues, and an increase in student achievement scores. These results correlate with the increased emphasis on flexibility and a sense of student ownership.

Integration of technology is important to begin establishing digital literacy and digital responsibility in students. This also further increases the range of content and resources available in the classroom to teachers and students alike. We worked with ACC on the Highland Campus to create the ACCelerator, a state-of-the-art, technology-enabled learning environment. The ACCelerator is a 32,000 square-foot lab which resides within a former shopping mall and offers more than 600 virtualized desktop workstations, classrooms and small group study rooms. The lab offers a support system of faculty members, academic coaches, advisors, counselors, and tutors available in real time. Students enrolled at ACC in the fall of 2014 for the first time who attended the ACCelerator were more successful in developmental courses (that is, they earned A’s, B’s or C’s) than non-ACCelerator students by 19 percentage points. While developing digital literacy is critical, it is important to remember that technology can also create distractions in a classroom. We must push for engaging, active technology integration over passive disengagement.

Flexibility is crucial in an educational space. A modern classroom should be able to accommodate different teaching styles and different forms of learning. Incorporating elements such as white boards, digital screens, and integrated audio and lighting systems are just a few examples which facilitate a range of teaching and learning styles. Movable desks and a variety of furniture types (desks, lounge, or standing stations) facilitate different forms of learning for students such as collaborative situations or individual work. This flexibility is also crucial because it allows the classroom to function for a wide range of educational activities such as a presentation, lab experiment, group discussions, interactive demonstrations, or working on projects.

When designing modern education facilities, it is crucial to ask teachers, students, and parents what they value in their environment. Different schools are at different places in this evolution, and as designers we must understand where a school is, and where it wants to go. 94% of American educators say the space they teach in impacts students’ learning. We have worked alongside educators to study and research how planning and design can support student success and produce measurable results. In order to design for the Students of Tomorrow, it is important to create environments that facilitate the integration of technology, student involvement, flexibility, and provide a variety of learning and collaboration spaces. We believe that these elements work together to create an active learning environment which sets up the Students of Tomorrow for learning, and prepares them for their encounter with the outside world.