Shaping the future through early learning, middle, and high school design
Author | Clay Dills, AIA
President, Dills Architects
As a kid, I loved digging in the dirt.
For a while, I was convinced I was going to be an archaeologist. Then, when I was about eight years old, an art teacher asked me a question that changed everything:
“Do you want to find things people made a thousand years ago, or do you want to make the things people find a thousand years from now?”
From that day forward, I was building things. Forts in the woods. Contraptions from leftover lumber. Hideouts made from scraps collected from my dad’s projects. Looking back, I realized I wasn’t just making things. I was cultivating an innate passion for understanding how things worked, how they fit together, and what they might become.
Little did I know that the way I learned had a name. This hands-on engagement, exploration, and experimentation are called active discovery, and this way of learning was fundamental to the development of my interest in architecture.
Growing up in the 1980s, I was not a fan of school. Sitting at a desk for most of the day and following routines was hard. I wanted to be outside. Exploring. Building. Taking things apart. Putting them back together. Figuring out for myself how things worked. Years later, my struggle to learn in a traditional classroom informs our understanding of how important it is to design primary and secondary learning environments, that encourage agency and set students up for success in both the immediate and longer term.
The educators we work with today share our appreciation of the importance and impact that the active discovery of concepts, materials, and problem solving have on fostering curiosity, learning momentum, and career interest. Real learning begins with making, taking apart, testing, failing, noodling and adjusting. In other words, learning to diagnose, experiment and solve. It’s here where the spark that can grow into a passion and a purpose is generated. Figuring things out is exciting, full of energy, and leaves a mark. Long after facts and formulas are forgotten, kids remember what they uncovered themselves. I know I did.
WHY EARLY MATTERS | THEY WON’T BE WHAT THEY DON’T SEE
Research shows that students begin ruling out unfamiliar futures as soon as middle school, making early exposure vitally important. In elementary and middle school design, our intent is to create environments that widen their sense of possibility by providing places for hands–on imagining, exploring and experimenting, also known as active discovery. To envision who they may become, students need space to see more of what is possible.
Designing for active discovery encourages students to:
Dig in.
It supports focus on one aspect of an assignment or project that interests them. Their choice can become the framework and motivator to develop learning skills and tie to other subjects, projects, and interests.
Ask questions.
Active discovery encourages learners to ask – How does this relate to my life? Through approaching a project or objective with a question that relates to their perspective and/or experience, students discover new ways to apply their interests to academic exploration.
Make meaning.
It promotes their creation of the problem to solve, the project to pursue, and the solution to test via a means that dovetails with the way of learning they prefer (writing, math, art, science), and thus sharpens interest and focus.
School design can provide more than instructional support; it can shape the future by expanding a student’s sense of what is possible.
FAQ
1 | What is active discovery in school design?
Active discovery is an approach to learning that gives students more opportunities to explore, question, make connections, and learn through experience. In school design, that means creating spaces that support movement, curiosity, collaboration, and different ways of learning.
2 | Why does active discovery matter in elementary and middle school?
Active discovery matters because the elementary and middle school years help shape how students see themselves, how they learn, and what futures feel possible. Reporting from The Hechinger Report, drawing on experts including the University of Virginia’s Nancy Deutsch and survey findings from American Student Assistance, highlights early adolescence as a key time for identity development and exploration. That makes early exposure important. School environments that support exploration, movement, making, and curiosity can help widen students’ sense of possibility before it starts to narrow.
3 | How can school design support exploration and student engagement?
School design can support exploration by creating learning neighborhoods, shared learning spaces, outdoor classrooms, and flexible areas where students can work in different ways and see other students engaging subjects they may want to explore. These types of environments give teachers more options, further supporting students to go deeper into their interests and potential career paths.
4 | What design features encourage active discovery in a school?
Features that encourage active discovery include extended learning and project areas, outdoor classrooms, flexible shared spaces, and transparency between subjects and career programs.
5 | How do you know if a school designed for active discovery is working?
One way is through post-occupancy feedback from educators and students. Understanding that students are finding interest and gaining exposure to other learning opportunities is a basic but telling data point. Developing a student’s known interests, and building on that motivation, creates excitement for learning and can foster higher achievement and wellness as students move from primary to secondary grade levels.