Quebec Educational Program, Pedagogical Approaches, and Design of Educational Spaces.

This study explores the major "design issues" raised by the goals, missions, and pedagogical approaches of educational programs and tries to link pedagogical approaches and the architectural design of educational spaces. The scope of this research is the latest Quebec Educational Program (QEP) published in 2005–2007. Donna Duerk's issue-based architectural programming is used as a research approach to investigate issues and requirements for the design of educational spaces. This approach is a systematic method of inquiry that defines the requirements for a successful project, and it is used to develop a model for the design issues related to the goals, missions, and pedagogical approaches of the QEP for secondary school design in Quebec. The following ten major design issues extracted from the literature review are considered as the basis for the analysis of the QEP: health and comfort, flexibility, technology, efficiency, accessibility, safety and security, pedagogy and space, aesthetics, building condition, and school size. The latest QEP is analyzed to verify which of these design issues are related to the goals and approaches of this program and based on the issue-based programming approach, the final model of design issues related to the QEP is developed. Practical Applications: New pedagogical approaches replaced the traditional understanding of the transition of knowledge with the viewpoint that knowledge is constructed through active learning and social interactions among students. Therefore, hands-on learning, critical thinking and problem-solving are encouraged as the basics of knowledge acquisition and incorporated into educational programs in many countries. Regarding the significant changes in educational approaches, one of the important challenges for architects is how to translate these requirements into the architectural design of schools. Studies show that the organization of a learning space affects the choice of teaching styles and the prevailing characteristics of the physical design of schools are crucial impediments to reform in educational approaches in schools. This study tries to create a practical approach toward the design of educational spaces to incorporate and translate educational programs into architectural design to support the teaching and learning requirements. Although this study focuses on the QEP, the result of this study can be applied to other educational programs that are based on the same pedagogical approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]