(CZ) Vyučovací prostory pro nové pedagogické metody
(EN) New Schools for New Теасhing Technology

Nobody doubts the usefulness of the new instructional media and methods but one important question is seldom considered. Will our present-day schools be adaptable to the needs of future educational systems? There is, no doubt, a lag between highly developed instructional technology and the evolution of school building designs. One way to improve it is a high flexibility of the school building design adaptable to the future needs that we know of or even the needs that are still unknown to us. In analysing the space requirements tor the progressive flexible school one should first consider the most important trends in leaching methods and means: 1. Differentiation and individualisation, group teaching, disappearing of grades and classes. 2. Programmed learning, using programmed books or teaching machines, formation of an instructional materials centre in schools. 3. Utilisation of audiovisual equipment and materials, TV, and laboratory type of instruction. 4. Team-teaching by a group of specialised teachers. It seems that none of the four trends could be fully applied in traditional classrooms of 6.60X9.00 metres (22 by 30 ft). For differentiated group teaching the traditional classrooms are too narrow. The daylighting is uneven and too directional from the left side to be suitable for free grouping. Programmed learning could be used in today’s classrooms fairly well with the exception of electrically powered teaching machines which are better placed in the information resource centre of the school equipped with special study boxes — carrels. The- audiovisual means require generally some regulation of the daylight when using the overhead, film or slide projector. A radical change may come if TV becomes an essential part of the teaching process. A new shape of the classroom might develop, having convergent or similar forms. Even square-shaped classrooms are an improvement on today’s oblong ones. The team-teaching means that not only the children are differentiated according to their capabilities, but the teachers too. This method will probably have the greatest influence on the change in school design; It couldn’t be applied in traditional schools at all. Either folding or sliding walls have to be used to create alternately large or small rooms. Or still more radically, t a school without walls is created, the so-called ≫open-space-school≪. This kind of school has of course special requirements for the physical environment which has to be of a highly sophisticated order. The influence of the changing teaching technology could be seen on the examples of California schools, shown at the exhibition of US-teaching techniques in Moscow last year. These examples show a good cooperation between the pedagogue, the architect and the authorities, which is always the precondition for successful planning.