More and more schools and teachers willing to break with the traditional education system, where students memorize the knowledge imparted by teachers in structured classrooms to the old fashioned.
And proof of this is the Hiperaula project of the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), which seeks to train the teachers of the new generations, focusing on active and collaborative learning through reconfigurable spaces. We present it to you!
What is hyperaula?
The UCM Faculty of Education, where some of the teachers who will teach our children in the future are trained, has radically reformed a dozen classrooms, with the purpose of promoting collaborative learning by creating flexible and adaptive spaces.
It is what is known by the name of Hyperaula, a hyperspace project (flexibility in the combination of spaces and times), with hypermedia (simple transition between orality, paper, audio, video, 3D ...) and hyperreality.
In Babies and more Educational innovation also involves changing the interior design of schools, and IKEA knows how to helpThis initiative has been inspired by Mariano Fernández Enguita, Professor of Sociology at the Complutense University and author of several books, including "Educate in uncertain times", "Failure and dropout in Spain" or "More school and less classroom" , where it shows precisely the anachronistic organization of today's classrooms and the need for a shift towards more flexible and free teaching.
Because classrooms do not refer exclusively to the space where students are distributed to learn, but it is a way of organizing time, activity and social relationships.In Hiperaula you bet on three great concepts:
Large spaces, equipped with flexible furniture that facilitates freedom, the movement, comfort and regrouping of students to work individually or collaboratively, depending on the occasion.
Flexible student groupings, whether for projects, subjects or materials, cycles, courses ...
Infrastructures and equipment must be adapted to any of the configurations designed by the teacher, either to give continuity to the work, to collaborate and even to receive non-contact teaching.
In this way, the student becomes the only protagonist of his learning, assimilating lessons based on the resolution of problems, challenges or projects, and combining face-to-face activities with others that require technology.
Alternatives to the traditional school
In recent years we have witnessed a succession of projects that have emerged as alternative to traditional school: schools without textbooks, schools where you work for projects, cooperative learning, SEM methodology, Montessori classrooms ...
In Babies and more Alternative education: what options do you have if you want a different school for your childrenThe closed classrooms with desks distributed in a row or groups, blackboard in front and schedule fragmented by subjects, is beginning to give way to open space, flexible times and several teachers working in a personalized way with their students.
But for this 21st century school to become a reality in every school in our country, teachers of the future must also receive training accordingly, thanks to public initiatives such as Hiperaula, or other private projects such as "The classroom of the 21st century" or the "LearningLab & DesignLab".
Hopefully more similar projects are emerging that bet on a radical change in the educational modelor. Because judging by the rates of school failure we have in our country and the data produced by the PISA Report, there are many who believe in the urgent need for change.
Photos | Hyperaula
