Setting the Stage for High-Quality Instruction, Student Achievement, and Belonging
Multistudio’s PreK–12 team is a leading voice for school design that adopts the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). UDL is a widely used framework for student success, empowering teachers to create inclusive opportunities to meet students' unique needs.
Our UDL-informed PreK–12 designs, including the award-winning Mission Bay School, are interconnected with our contributions to education through thought leadership, academic research, resources for educators, and educational programming at our in-house learning environment, STEAM Studio.
Recently, we partnered with researchers at Steelcase, the University of Kansas Department of Special Education, and a Detroit-area high school to help school leaders explore how space design could increase student engagement and interaction through UDL-centered design.
A collaborative team of designers and researchers, including Dr. Michael Ralph, Director of the Research Center at Multistudio, developed furniture design concepts for English and math classrooms at Fraser High School. The finished classrooms align with and encourage UDL by emphasizing movement, choice, opportunities for collaboration, and students’ sensory experiences.
On the first visit to the school, the team noticed that these spaces looked like most conventional classrooms over the last 30 years. After the redesign, these learning environments provided teachers with multiple avenues to engage students, remove barriers to learning, and elevate their strengths.
Four-person group tables were equipped with rolling chairs to reduce the difficulty of movement throughout the room. Reclined seating areas and high-top tables offered multiple options for students to tailor their learning environment. The team also chose an acoustic screen to differentiate the reclined seating area and provide a protected space for focus time or quiet activities.
At Fraser High School, Dr. Ralph and the team, including foremost researchers in UDL, developed a study to understand how the redesigned classrooms met the school’s interest in increased student engagement.
For two months, teachers taught all their participating classes in the redesigned UDL spaces. In the third month, teachers received a randomized assignment to teach in either the redesigned classrooms or other unmodified spaces in the school.
A trained external observer visited classes using a UDL research tool to determine how teachers implemented UDL in the unmodified rooms compared to those redesigned by the team.
The observer conducted 74 classroom observations, which the research team combined with focus groups, surveys, interviews, and assessment performance to create a comprehensive picture of learning in the study spaces.
Dr. Ralph and the research team found that the redesigned spaces led to beneficial outcomes for students and teachers:
The design and research team accomplished its goal of helping Fraser School District leaders understand student engagement and interaction through UDL-based design. Additionally, the team provided data regarding student achievement, teacher satisfaction and confidence, and students’ sense of belonging.
Our PreK–12 Education design team’s approach provides an advantage for schools as they seek to implement their strategic vision. School leaders hope to align a long list of priorities, but too often, these initiatives compete against each other for resources or operate in isolation.
“When we’re at our best,” said Dr. Ralph, “There’s an interplay between space creation and supporting teachers and admin to understand what a space can do and how they can get the most value out of it.”
As evidenced by our impact study in the Fraser School District, Multistudio offers districts opportunities to unify a range of school initiatives by creating and sustaining environments where students and teachers thrive.
Explore Multistudio’s PreK–12 Education school designs, or visit our Research Center.
