Embracing the Right Questions: Planning Spaces for Science.

Our colleagues at the National Clearinghouse for Education Facilities describe this resource from Project Kaleidoscope: "Discusses planning of new higher education science spaces in a collection of seminar documents. These discuss revisiting institutional priorities, considering the allocation or reallocation of resources so that those priorities can be funded over the long term, and asking key questions about all aspects of the planning process. The documents consider whether or not old questions are still relevant and what new questions are emerging, along with the thoughts of architects and other reflective practitioners from the design world."

Embracing the Right Questions: Planning Spaces for Science

Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL) offers a wealth of useful resources and events. In its online publication, Volume V: Then, Now & In the Next Decade, the latest issue is titled Embracing the Right Questions: Planning Spaces for Science.

This entry also references parts of PKAL Volume IV: What Works, What Matters, What Lasts:

Anticipating Renovating: This seminar, in conjunction with the National Collegiate Inventors & Innovators Alliance (NCIAA) and co-sponsored by Herman Miller, was part of a series of PKAL activities focusing on the relationship of space and learning. These questions and insights are being incorporated into planning for upcoming PKAL activities relating to planning facilities for undergraduate learners.

Asking the Right Questions: Toward Building Communities: Community is the spirited enactment of the conviction that ideas are important, and that they gain life when people bring different perspectives to their consideration. Communities embrace a common vision, yet allow— even promote— difficult dialogues. This is the challenge to leaders, within the faculty and the administration, as your planning proceeds.

Collecting Questions From the Field: Burning Questions from the 2006 Facilities Workshop: Meredith College

Understanding Key Questions: After more than a decade of significant activity in imagining, planning, constructing, and using new spaces for natural science communities on our nation’s campuses, it seemed prudent to step back, to ask if old questions are still relevant and what new questions are emerging. It seemed equally important to begin to gather thoughts of architects and other reflective practitioners from the design professional world about questions for the future.

Guidelines for Collaboration: The Dean's Perspective

A concise Project Kaleidoscope essay with a lot of heft to it:

It is important to remember that when committees are established for a specific task, existing relationships between people often change. People, some of whom may have worked together in other arenas, are coming together around a new task. They are being asked to think in a different way as they begin collaborating on a difficult, demanding and complex assignment, understanding how to use their differences in ways that advance their collective agenda. It is vital that the early life of the group be built around trust, with procedures, time frames, work plans, and schedules established openly and transparently.

Ownership of the task connects to trust. Everyone needs to feel that her or his individuality is acknowledged, even as the group joins together for the larger goal. Those in leadership roles, particularly the project shepherd (a PKAL title for the key person in a facilities planning effort), must continually see that diversity of perspectives are brought to the table and that disagreements are addressed in a timely manner. This recognition of the value of the different and diverse perspectives at the table helps to build trust in the process, enfranchises all involved, and leads to wide-spread ownership of both the process and the outcome.

Creativity As a Student Learning Goal

This Project Kaleidoscope collection, of papers from the PKAL community of stakeholders - each with a summary and a "full document" or transcript - focuses on creativity as a student learning goal. Tori Haring-Smith, president of Washington and Jefferson College speaks about the relationship between "reflection" and creative ability. That's paired up with two PDFs from the US Military Academy: "Creativity: A Goal for Student Learning at West Point" and "Educating Future Army Officers for a Changing World."

From Haring Smith's transcript: "My senior staff is always dreading what they call the “shower memo.” They know when I shower and if the time accords with the end of the shower they know it’s a I was just thinking kind of memo. These moments are woefully rare in our fast
paced world of Blackberries and cell phones."

From "Creativity": "Uninformed observers probably would not describe our modern Army as a proponent of creative thinking. To the contrary, the GI stereotype might lead one to believe that Army service involves mechanical obedience to specific orders: e.g., dig the trench, refill the hole, and repeat. In contradistinction to this stereotype, Army leaders, who function in a world of rapid technological, social, political, and economic change, must be astute thinkers and innovators."