Creating Better Learning Environments

[00:01] SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, bringing you the best in professional practice.

[00:06] Announcer:

Here's your host, director of the Principal Center and champion of high-performance instructional leadership, Justin Bader. Welcome, everyone, to Principal Center Radio.

[00:15] SPEAKER_02:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to be joined today by Kevin Stoller. Kevin is the author of Creating Better Learning Environments and the host of the podcast Better Learning.

[00:27] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:29] SPEAKER_02:

Kevin, welcome to Principal Center Radio.

[00:31] SPEAKER_00:

Thanks for having me, Justin. I'm really excited. I've had an opportunity to listen to your show and, yeah, I love what you're doing.

[00:36] SPEAKER_02:

Well, thanks for being here. I'm excited to talk about this topic that we typically don't think about very often of designing a learning environment. You know, it's something that we might get the opportunity to think about when we're opening a new school or doing a renovation, but, you know, typically the physical work space that students work within, that we have, the way we have our classrooms set up. It's one of the most fixed things for most educators. So I'm excited to talk about this opportunity because when it happens, when we have that opportunity to open a new school or when we take it upon ourselves to create the opportunity to kind of rethink how we're using space, how we're using seating, how we're using furniture to shape the learning environment, I think some amazing things can happen. So take us into that a little bit.

[01:26]

Why did you write Creating Better Learning Environments? And what are some of the key opportunities that you see for us as educators in thinking about some of those things that we just kind of take for granted? You know, there's gonna be furniture, there are gonna be desks, we'll move them around as we can. Help us think about that in a better way.

[01:43] SPEAKER_00:

For sure. When we approached this book, it was really because we were seeing the trend that we were working with schools around the country and every single one we talked to was kind of having the same issues and didn't really know where to start. And we said, you know what, why don't we share kind of this experience? And it's really meant to, the book is really a practical guide of trying to guide through that. And this is 100% not about when you're doing a new school. These are about changes that you can make every day And there's slight changes that can lead to big change.

[02:14]

So so usually when I'm talking to leadership and this is what what, you know, with your audience, it really starts at the core of like, what are you trying to accomplish? Like the highest point of like, this is the goal of the school. This is the goal of the district. And this is what we're trying to do. And to do that, to implement change, it usually requires some type of change to the physical environment. So if you're talking to your staff and your teachers saying we want to create collaborative environments and we really want to incorporate kind of the four C's of 21st century learning, but then they go back to an environment where they have their straight grows and all their stuff that they've accumulated over 20 years of teaching in that classroom, it is really difficult for that change to happen.

[02:58]

So we put together kind of it's really more a practical guide of case studies and to show that this can be done. This doesn't mean you have to wait until you can get that bond that's gonna pass every 30, 40 years to do a new school or do an expansion. These are changes that you can do every day. And I wanna stress also that this is not about furniture. And in fact, the first thing that we usually recommend is taking things out of the classroom.

[03:23] SPEAKER_02:

Well, and I know we tend to, you know, want to accumulate that flexible seating, you know, the desks in rows, like we've hated that for a long time, right, in education. The desks that are, you know, they're no longer bolted down, but in a lot of cases, I mean, I remember when I was in high school, if you were in one of the rooms that had the good desks, you know, they had the kind of melamine, you know, super, super hard seats and the desk was attached to the chair and you could at least move those a little bit, but it was still kind of clunky to get them into small groups. So to me, that was kind of like flexible seating 1.0 that at least allowed us to rearrange things and get them out of rows. But I have a feeling that's probably not the state of the art anymore. So catch me up a little bit.

[04:09]

What is the state of the art and what are educators doing with some of those newer options that are available?

[04:14] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, for sure. The main thing that we usually talk about first is like really think about how students learn. There's really kind of six different ways where students learn. You know, they either learn by visual, auditory, verbally being able to tell it back, collaboratively in a group or solitary. They really need that individual time to sink in. And the last one is hands on of being able to really dig in and be able to kinesthetically learn that way.

[04:45]

So when you look at that, and I think the other fallacy is that understanding that every student only has one of those. The reality is that every student utilizes almost all of those, but they may have more predominant style, but it's really just making sure that throughout the day or throughout the weeks or months that they have different types of learning styles and trying to accommodate that. So when you kind of really take a step back and say, okay, this is about the student and how do we reach individual student, it usually doesn't mean that it turns into a uniform environment where you have 24 or 32 of all of the same things. So that's one where we really kind of start the foundation of being like, okay, if we can understand that not everyone's going to learn the same way and even the ones who are predominantly learning one style, that doesn't mean that they need to be in that environment 100% of the time.

[05:39]

That's when the door starts opening up and saying, well, let's look at this now. Let's make sure we have different environments that we can change it. We can have, whether it's standing areas, whether it's allowing them to sit on the ground, whether it's creating group work, creating areas where they can break off when they just need to have that alone time. And there's a lot of examples throughout the book and through the things where we we learn from that. And, you know, like one of my favorite ones is, is, um, you know, you talk to students about like collaboration, such a big thing. And there's been schools that have been built all around collaboration, but there, it almost became over overstimulating for people who needed that alone time.

[06:22]

And one of the issues the school ended up having was they found that students were going to the bathroom and going into the stalls for just a long period of time, because that was their only opportunity to really have, time for themselves to just really have kind of that quiet area to allow things to sink in and and give them a break from all the collaboration was there so that's a long answer i can go into more examples on there but that but there's a lot of different things that we look at if you really just start looking at every individual student that's where it starts

[06:53] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I love that recognition that there are different modalities that students use throughout the day. And it's not that they're fixed for one student, you know, and one student is always working alone. But we need to work kind of flexibly. There's a time for collaboration. There's a time for solo work. There's a time for standing up and sitting down.

[07:11]

And, you know, those are things that I do, even though I'm sitting at a desk right now. There are times when I'm in another room talking with our team. There are times when I'm standing up and talking. I think we've got to design that in to more of the school day. And it's interesting, Kevin, because I think we know all of this at some level and in pockets of K-12 education. I was a science teacher, and we know that if you're going to have a proper chemistry lab, you have to have lab tables and sinks and all the kind of specialized built-ins that go with that.

[07:41]

And yet you don't want to teach a regular lesson where you're doing work out of a textbook or on the board at the sink like it's it's kind of annoying to have to have kids sit at the sink and i remember that in high school myself having to sit at a sink and take notes with a binder and everything so we we know that we need some different options depending on what's happening instructionally and at the elementary level we see teachers building these things into their classrooms you know there's a rug there's a corner where students maybe can go and sit on a beanbag chair to read there are the regular desks maybe students are sitting in groups of four by default but that's that's rearranged sometimes how does that play into big picture design when you know when we want that flexibility what are some of the key elements that schools are now you know being aware of kind of what the state of the art is

[08:32]

What are some of the key elements that schools are designing in so that every classroom has that flexibility? And it's not just, you know, the one teacher who got a sofa or a beanbag chair or a rug.

[08:40] SPEAKER_00:

So what we're seeing is you're right. Flexibility is probably the number one thing. The ability to rearrange things quickly, like within 60 seconds is like the biggest thing that you can do, because even when you get into a lot of what a lot of people would say is this is a collaborative learning environment, um, It's typically set up one way at the beginning of the year, and that's the way it stays the entire year. So we talk about being able to adjust and not throughout the year, but literally throughout the class period and throughout the day, being able to say, OK, at some point, you know, like and having things on wheels and or lightweight are the number one thing that you can do to do that. And I'll talk about kind of some of the pushback and some of the lessons learned from from doing that in a second here, but being able to have that flexibility from everything from storage to really not even being able to have like those built in areas.

[09:35]

So when we talk about the space, there are so many areas that when we've done the research, it's about 20, 15 to 25% of the square footage within a classroom is typically off limits to students. So if you look at this and this is either like physically because where the teacher's desk is set up and, you know, students just know I can't go behind this teacher's desk to just the areas, maybe it's the first week in class where the teacher, somebody starts walking that way and the teacher just makes it kind of like, that right there just put up a boundary for the entire class for the entire year of saying, I can't go over there either. And we all know that, you know, there's most of the complaints are is that there's just not enough space within a classroom. And you can have a lot of students or the square footage is just small. So we're trying to really utilize every amount of space in there.

[10:29]

So being able to clear out a lot is usually our first step in the process. If there's the ability to actually get rid of a lot of the built-in things that have been there for 20 or 30 years, that's a great place to start. Because if you really look at it, there's probably a lot of stuff in there that doesn't need to be utilized anymore. And then we also really get into is what's on the walls. What's on the walls can really dictate a lot of the boundaries and things too. And it also creates a lot of confusion and distraction within the students.

[11:00]

So we really started being like, let's look at how do we utilize all four walls and how do we utilize all the square footage. And then, you know, and a lot of this process too goes beyond that. This isn't just about classrooms. How do we utilize all the areas within the school, whether it's the hallways, the shared spaces or outdoor space as well?

[11:19] SPEAKER_02:

I was laughing a little bit to myself because I remember being a middle school science teacher and having these very durable tables that were designed for two students to sit at. So it was kind of a double, two-seated table, maybe four feet wide. And we had students sit in fairly high stools. They were fairly high tables. And they were very chemical resistant. They would take a beating.

[11:42]

They were terrific in that regard. But any time we had to move them, we really had to practice moving them. And I love what you said, the 60-second rule. We need to be able to rearrange this classroom in 60 seconds in order to have that agility, that flexibility to adapt to whatever we're doing. I would say that was one of the hardest routines to teach, but one of the most important at the beginning of every semester was how do we move these tables from rows into squares or whatever we're going to do for the activity without clocking each other with the chairs or making it sound like a herd of elephants to everybody downstairs. And you identified wheels as one big thing.

[12:21]

What are some of the, you know, the rearrangements that people are doing? Because, you know, typically at the elementary level, we have different sections set up in the room and the kids are small, physically small enough that you can kind of do that. But when we actually are rearranging. What are people doing? What does the equipment these days allow people to do? And how are you seeing teachers tie that to their instructional purpose?

[12:45] SPEAKER_00:

So we're really seeing there's really kind of six different predominant classroom designs. And we go through the book and actually we did not write this book trying to sell a lot of copies and make a lot of money. We literally we're giving this book away. So if anyone wants kind of the PDF copy, I can give that to your viewers as well. We can have a link on here to do that because it is very visual being able to look at this. But when we looked at it, there's really, there's kind of different areas.

[13:15]

So there's the traditional, which we're very used to, straight rows, kind of bulky stuff. There's kind of the new traditional, which is allowed to reconfigure it a little bit, but they typically don't reconfigure it. So they could either be in straight rows or you can put them into groups of four. And then we get into other ones that are kind of the more popular ones we're seeing moving forward. We're seeing one called ultimate flexibility. This ultimate flexibility is literally everything is on wheels.

[13:44]

The student has everything on wheels. There's storage underneath there. They have a work surface attached to their chair. And this allows a teacher to be able to kind of walk in at the beginning of the class period and say, okay, let's huddle up. And they get a U-shaped type of format. And they have a little bit of discussion and be like, this is what we're going to talk about today.

[14:02]

And then they'll do like, okay, well, let's break and go into your groups. And they immediately just kind of literally within like 30 seconds, just go into their groups of, you know, three to five and have their discussions. There may be mobile whiteboards that are throughout the room that create some privacy, but they also create the areas where they can kind of write out their notes. And then some, you know, and then sometimes the teacher will be like, okay, well, why doesn't, you know, as the teacher's walking through the room, Um, they may get the class's attention or towards the end say, Hey, you guys need to see what, what they're doing over here. And then one of these groups will present and they'll use the marker boards as kind of their presentation materials. Um, and then by the end of the class period, they're huddling back up.

[14:43]

Um, and you know, and being able to have that flexibility allows them to also break into testing mode when they need to get into their individual spaces. It allows them to wheel things out into the hallway if that's acceptable in your school, to be able to have more areas so it's not so loud in those areas. It also allows someone if they just need to break away and create some space for themselves to just kind of move out. It's really cool to organically watch what the students do instead of the teachers and the administrators kind of force this is the way we want to do that. Because we find like if we give them the opportunity, they'd rather work on the floor. They'd rather stand up and kind of be in a group.

[15:21]

They'd rather be walking around than kind of having to have kind of that one area where this is where we're supposed to sit and learn.

[15:28] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that's an interesting point, the idea of student choice, because I think, you know, flexible seating, you know, beyond having students sit in groups of four, you know, the idea of flexible seating, like being able to stand or sit on a bouncy, like a yoga ball, those things, I think, first became popular as interventions for students with disabilities or attention issues you know students who maybe needed to fidget more or stand up or move around more than other students but if if we make that just kind of a tier one kind of a normal aspect of the class students will choose things that we might not necessarily have have thought of you know because like as an adult you know at my age i am not going to be sitting on the floor for very long i am not going to be lying down on the floor to work on something um but kids have different needs than than we do and can kind of advocate for themselves

[16:17] SPEAKER_00:

But I also agree this is something that's important to adults, too, because how many adults want to sit in one seat for the entire day? You know, that's why we're seeing such an emergence of height adjustable and being able to have different abilities for in the workplace of having different environments. I mean, like sometimes you just need to go into a little private phone booth area and Um, sometimes you need to go into a meeting area and be able to, you know, collaborate with a group of four or five people. So that, that is one of the other ones we talk about student choice of having four or five different types of zones or options for students based on what, what they're working on then, and the kind of how they feel at the same time too. And those lead into a whole bunch of different management issues too, that get into the teachers and leadership that this really does get into the curriculum and changing the way that you teach. So that's where we're really big of sharing those lessons learned, that practical advice of the people that now are either kind of given this type of environment that's very different than what they've always had, and they really struggle with it.

[17:22]

Because a lot of times, if you think about it, a lot of the environments are set up more for the teachers to be able to say, like, this is where I'm comfortable. And a lot of times it is easier to teach if kids are sitting in a straight row and it's not messy and there's not a lot of distractions. we are creating some things where there's a lot more movement and it really facilitates a lot of changes in professional development that needs to happen within the staff to accommodate that. Which is why kind of at a higher level, I always want to emphasize at the leadership level that furniture should, I mean, this is really should just exemplify what you're trying to create. If you have a mission for your school, the school should be able in that image of how you want it to do, which is why it's really difficult to implement widespread change without changing that physical environment.

[18:14] SPEAKER_02:

It's interesting because I've been seeing the research lately on open office floor plans. There's a lot of discussion in the business world of these open offices that were cool for a long time in companies are like, oh, it's a collaborative workspace. And the research has come back, no, it's actually just massively distracting to everyone That's why they're all wearing headphones trying to get work done, much less trying to make phone calls and think and things like that. So I'm glad that we're reconsidering some of these assumptions that have gone unchallenged for a while. And one thing that I was looking at on your website, your website is so much fun to just kind of click through and imagine. and I'm at k-12 spelled out k-a-y-t-w-e-l-v-e.com and I found something called the think nook and I think you probably have several things in this category tell us what a think nook is because I mean it seems like it's straight out of one of those cool companies downtown you know where where you know people people have these these excellent jobs and they get to collaborate and do cool stuff tell us what a think nook is and how schools are using that

[19:21] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So the think nook is really kind of a kind of supporting that idea of that. You know, there are times that you just need some quiet space and, and being able to do that. Um, these think nooks that have come out and there's a lot of, you know, it's really cool to see the manufacturers recognizing that they, you know, like they really can have some influence, but a lot of it's because they're listening and they're trying to see what's going on within schools. Um, but the think nook gives the opportunity for somebody who just needs some of that quiet time. Um, you can go and be able to go and it's got kind of sound barriers in there.

[19:55]

So it really allows somebody who just needs to, to just silence their brain a little bit, whether it's the reading a book, writing, thinking about something and being able to have that still within the context of within a classroom, but it's also mobile so that you can move it throughout. So if you need to have them in the library, sometimes if you need to have one or two in a classroom, some in the hallways and different areas, it's really made, for those environments to really allow somebody who just needs that break, that alone time to allow things to sink in.

[20:28] SPEAKER_02:

Well, and I love the whiteboard on the back of it also, because it's one of those things that is ubiquitous in the adult world of work, right? Like when we have staff meetings and professional development, we're writing on stuff, we're writing on chart paper, on the walls, the board, certainly in companies, people are doing that. And I've noticed that when my kids are in our company office, they're always wanting to write on the board, right? But like, so often we only let students write up on the walls in very prescribed ways. Like you can solve this problem, but like, don't do any of your thinking.

[21:01] SPEAKER_00:

Right. We have to invite you up there to use it on the wall.

[21:04] SPEAKER_02:

Right. It's a special, very constrained kind of format. Um, so what are you seeing schools doing, uh, in terms of that, of, of like deciding how to use the space as part of their, their work?

[21:16] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely. And that's the writable spaces is such a, Easy example to talk about because we've literally we just did a classroom where everything was writable. Balls were writable. The actual the desktops and the tabletops were writable. And then they also had they also had mobile boards throughout the room for when, you know, and kind of that multipurpose being able to create different zones and areas. So if you need to have a little bit more privacy, but also all of that was writable.

[21:44]

And it is interesting. And again, it depends on the subject and the age level that you want to do this in. But especially for math, math has kind of proven the same thing. Being able to write things out, especially in bigger areas, is really helpful for retaining that information. So it is really cool to just literally have kind of a bucket within the table of dry erase markers and erasers and saying, like, here you go. Like there there's nothing off limits here.

[22:14]

You can utilize the space kind of as needed. And it is really cool because they they do. I mean, everyone everyone really does like being able to write on things, whether it's kind of on walls and doing that and having that visual visual experience. So you can look at it, also other people can look at it as well while you're doing it.

[22:34] SPEAKER_02:

Right, and not just having, like I remember in my classroom, maybe I didn't have a whiteboard when I started, but then we had some minor renovations and I got upgraded from chalkboard to whiteboard. showing my age here a little bit. But, you know, my board was so far away from students. You know, there's like the student desks and then a little bit of pathway space. And then my massive teacher demonstration counter with a sink, you know, it's kind of a science lab. And then a few feet beyond that was the actual whiteboard.

[23:01]

So most students were like at least 15 feet away, maybe as many as 40 feet away from my whiteboard. But we're talking about actually putting them all around the room where students can access them anytime.

[23:12] SPEAKER_00:

And, you know, and a lot of the research shows to like being able to have writable spaces, but then also being able to just like not have a whole lot of things up on the walls. That becomes very distracting and being able to, so that's one of the reasons that kind of contributes to it too, is if you kind of have these writable spaces, it's easier to just kind of clear it off and kind of have more of a blank slate. You know, even things like just the colors that are used in the classroom, being able to kind of have a cohesive color pattern is one of those things that is just kind of, it's, you know, as they've done the research, it's just a more calming learning environment that, that's set up by doing that versus kind of having everything out there. And, you know, and I've always kind of heard examples of like, you know, like even if you go in elementary, like how long do you need kind of like the alphabet up on, up on, you know, the walls, like how many, you know, different things like that on there are different maps that you have out there.

[24:09]

We like, well, it's really good for maybe to support kind of that, when you're learning at that point, but it probably doesn't need to stay up there all year long. So trying to find and encourage the teachers to really think about what is in this space and does it need to be here?

[24:25] SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely. And that also is some research that I've seen very recently. Daniel Willingham has been sharing a lot of that research on distraction in the learning environment. And this goes very much against a cultural norm, especially at the elementary level, but I would say also at the middle school and high school level. We want our classrooms to be pretty, we want them to be visually interesting, we want them to be attractive, and we really reward teachers with reinforcement and encouragement for making their classrooms not bare bones. We have a bias against that minimalist classroom wall.

[25:04]

And what I'm seeing the research say, and I think what you're saying, is that the evidence is coming in that all of that richness and attractiveness and all the posters on the wall and all the different learning resources and anchor charts and all that stuff really is a distraction for a lot of kids and not the magic bullet that we've been taught to believe. Maybe we have been going too far with putting stuff up on the walls to make our classrooms beautiful.

[25:33] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, the term that we keep hearing a lot, too, is stop decorating your classes and start designing your classes, making it away from just what are the decorations here and saying, like, what is the learning purpose of this, of every single item? And, you know, and so for your listeners, you know, that's probably one of the best places to start. Be like, just go in there today and pick five or ten things. Or maybe if it's simple, just start with one thing. Take one thing out of your classroom. And does that help or hurt your classroom with that being gone?

[26:06]

Because when we've seen people do that, it's like you literally can get into like the hundreds of things before people even notice that they're not even there anymore.

[26:13] SPEAKER_02:

So you're kind of Marie Kondo-ing the classroom walls, like take it off. Do you miss it?

[26:18] SPEAKER_00:

It is. It's exactly that. Yeah. The first thing you do is get, yeah, start in the closets and clear all those clothes that aren't being used out of there.

[26:26] SPEAKER_02:

Well, and I think for anything that we actually want students to look at as a resource, you know, and a reference. You know, I saw my daughter had her pencil box. She got to take home her pencil box from school at the end of kindergarten. And on top of that, you know, she's got the alphabet. She's got the numbers. She's got some of that reference information that, you know, we want early readers and writers and mathematicians to have handy.

[26:48]

But yeah, that doesn't need to be 20 feet long across the wall. You know, we don't need to have a massive... uh you know chart for everything on the wall it can be a more minimal reference it can be a more you know purposefully pulled out reference if we're using something that day we can pull that out and students will notice it more than if it's just one of a million things that are always plastered on the walls Well, Kevin, let's talk a little bit about process. So, you know, we can all dream about nice new furniture and imagine what could be different.

[27:17]

We can all take a few things down from our walls to make them less distracting. But as a design process, what does this really look like to design a learning environment?

[27:26] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and that's actually one of the things when we wrote the book is what came from this is when we said, you know what, we've worked with hundreds of schools. Let's look at this. And our team got together and said, OK, like these are the steps that we're seeing pretty much every single time. And it usually starts with kind of that first step of somebody taking the lead. And this can be, we call it kind of like the champion of it. There's just gotta be someone who is recognizing that this can have an impact on learning outcomes.

[27:53]

And it can be one teacher, it could be a staff member, it could be a principal, a leadership, it could be even a student or a parent. We've seen it kind of across the board. But all it takes is one person

[28:10]

We purposely talk about the wording of the book. It's creating is a verb. So in creating better learning environments, this is never something that you were done. We're not talking about creating the best learning environment. We are just talking about making improvements all along. And then the fact that it's learning environment, trying to recognize that that it's not just a classroom.

[28:31]

It's the entire experience that you're having throughout your facilities and the grounds on your school. So the first step is really having that champion. The second step is really defining what is the space going to look like and what do we want it to support? So that really comes back to kind of like the master planning and kind of the higher level of saying, you know, like we have a mission into school to, you know, to have a collaborative, um, social environment, whatever your mission is, really take that at the beginning. And then we always say, let's start at a conceptual level. So this is usually when we are doing drawings.

[29:06]

Um, and we're not talking about specific furniture because it's really easy to go to Pinterest and catch your eye on something, but Oh, that's cool. I want that in my classroom. Um, but instead let's talk, talk about it conceptually and say, okay, this is the way we want to do it. And that's one of the things, those drawings are so powerful that we actually offer them for free on our website. Um, so if, if you guys, if somebody is listening to this and wants to be that champion, uh, Just go in there. We will do the drawings for free.

[29:34]

We're going to ask you a bunch of questions about it. And then we'll give you a whole bunch of ideas because it does help to have those 3D renderings and visualization of it. Once we kind of get that buy-in of that in that collaboration stage, that's where it's most fun for us because we really want to make sure that we're getting that concept down. And then we can plug in furniture that supports the budget. And sometimes people say, well, I can't afford furniture. to do all of it.

[29:58]

So maybe they just start in one area and they start kind of doing that and say, okay, did that work? Oh, good. Well, maybe I want to do a little bit more of that, or maybe I want to try something else next time. Um, and then, um, you know, then obviously the implementation of it is something we help with as well. But the last step to me is probably the most important step is being able to meet with people and be able to think about it and analyze it after the fact, after the changes are made. We do offer trainings.

[30:25]

We offer professional development. But this is also something that is just whether people do this on their own or without someone to help them facilitate this, of taking that step back after the classroom has been utilized a little bit and say, OK, what's working? What do I need to adjust? And really this process we call the K-12 proven process. It doesn't matter if you're starting with one classroom or you're doing an entire school. These steps are something that we do every single time.

[30:51]

Because it really comes back to that core goal of what are we trying to do? We're trying to create better learning outcomes in the environment. really should support that.

[31:03] SPEAKER_02:

So certainly anybody who is looking at a big project, such as opening a new school or a major renovation, should definitely spend some time on that design process. But I appreciate your point, Kevin, about starting small. And if we have maybe one classroom that we're updating or we're adding a new classroom, thinking about what that could look like and if that could be kind of a beachhead for some broader changes, thinking through those with the right people around the table whatever shape that table is and whether or not it has wheels. Really enjoyed flipping through the book just on Amazon. The preview on Amazon has a ton of diagrams and examples and photographs. So I definitely encourage people to check that out.

[31:43]

And Kevin, if people are interested in getting a copy of Creating Better Learning Environments or getting in touch with you, where's the best place for them to go online?

[31:49] SPEAKER_00:

k12.com, K-A-Y-T-W-E-L-V-E.com.

[31:55] SPEAKER_02:

Perfect. Well, thank you so much. I look forward to looking through that and getting some ideas from it. And I just want to thank you for joining me on Principal Center Radio.

[32:03] SPEAKER_00:

All right. Well, thanks, Justin. I appreciate it.

[32:05] Announcer:

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