Cultural Confluence: A Spirited Learning Environment

Abstract

Education has been at the forefront of all cultures since the beginning of time. Success, often described and held to different standards throughout the world, has often relied on its instructors, setting, and facilities. As technology develops, its role in today’s schools and educational facilities increases. Many of these environments do not have the facilities to keep up with the ever-changing technologies that the instructors must use to stay relevant. Along with these facility needs comes the constant needs of its users to feel safe, welcomed, and included. Native American learners struggle with their traditional cultures and fitting those traditions into the larger context that is the 21st Century society. This thesis research provides architectural solutions to the shifting needs of today’s learning from traditional to 21st Century environments. Educational spaces that induce student learning are also engaging for those students and can bridge even the largest of cultural gaps. Research investigates and analyzes learning methods that are successful and precedents that effectively demonstrate strategies or salient qualities. It also examines architectural conditions that support an encompassing variety of instruction methods. Research also demonstrates cultural solutions to healing the anxieties of the Native American students in the local area while potentially affording benefits to alternative learning strategies for Non-Native students. Architecture for engaged learning should express shared meanings and enhance potential for cross-cultural discovery and inclusion.