Marshall High School Library
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We speak to the importance of designing authentic learning opportunities for students. Educators get to experience them as well. 🙂 My wife Margaret is working on a proposal to help guide her school leaders to look to the future and not the past when planning for a new library as they build a new high school to replace their current one.

Margaret and I are fortunate to have worked in some international schools where the leadership either adapted structures or designed new ones that put the libraries at the center of the learning experience for the students. Margaret provided the leadership and know-how to make each school library the virtual learning center for the community.

Moving back to the US continued our experience with innovative libraries. Our sons were fortunate to attend Marshall High School, which built a whole new library as part of the school’s five-year remodeling effort. Here is a blog post and Ed Tech Co-Op podcast, which provide more information about the very future-focused library.

As a sometimes helpful husband, I reached out to my PLN to see if I could find some resources to assist Margaret in her effort. Thanks to Lauren Olson for sharing helpful sites on how we design and interact in the learning spaces we call libraries.

• 6 Active Learning Spaces Your Library Should Have
• Flip This Library: School Libraries Need a Revolution
• Cultivating Participatory in Your Library Learning Commons (link to a presentation)
• The School Library as the Third Place
• Libraries and Learning Commons (includes video exemplars)
• TED Talk on Architecture including Libraries
• Research Paper on the Library as the Third Place (Lauren the teacher librarian says to check the bibliography for more resources)