Flywheel generates momentum towards realising innovative knowledge economy environments in the commercial and educational sectors

Tom Weaver, Managing Director of Flywheel Ltd, is a design strategist and highly experienced public speaker, who is actively engages in creating the next generation educational and corporate real estate solutions for the knowledge economy.

His previous experience involved a number of years within the learning environments sector, where he recently led a transformational project for the Department for Children, Schools and Families to rethink the way science laboratories should be designed based on the needs of the learner, as opposed to the teacher. This project had significant implications for the entire design of schools and led to the securing of a two year, whole school redesign project, Space for Personalised Learning, for which he is currently also the lead consultant, working through DEGW.

He is available for keynotes, after dinner speeches, consulting, seminars and presentations on a variety of topics, including:

Where We Work: the evolution of places to work across the centuries, and what the future holds

The design of the workplace affects most of us, day by day, and its evolution across the centuries tells a compelling story about the types of work ongoing within these environments. As our economy shifts further away from industrial and towards knowledge, Tom Weaver asks whether we are going full circle back towards workplace ideals of the merchant class in the middle ages, and looks forward at the changes that policy, technology and culture will bring on workplaces around the world. Drawing on his research into work environments for Nomad Property, his new venture into commercial real estate, Tom will demonstrate how companies can become more effective through forecasting and considering these issues, and considers what implication this has for other types of environments, such as universities and schools.

21st Century Learning Space: how to think about designing schools for the digital native

A decade after the dawn of the information revolution, the learning space of new schools continue to be designed in the old, time-honoured ways. Part of the problem is a lack of reference points for how to design for new generations of learners: concepts like personalisation can confuse and cloud the issue as much as inspire change. Tom Weaver considers the needs of the digitial native and creates a step by step understanding of how to design 21st century learning space.

Credit Crunch Me: how the global funding crisis may be Building Schools for the Future’s opportunity to implement small schools

Based on his recent Thinkpiece, Tom Weaver asks: what if we could build schools in a much more cost efficient way, making them highly adaptive to change, supporting our learners and staff better pastorally, and could be a closer part of our community? Perhaps the opportunity of the credit crunch is to make some radical changes in how we think about building new schools. Tom looks at how to practically make it happen.

Project Faraday: designing the next generation of science learning environments

The humble science lab has changed little in the century and a half since Faraday himself taught, despite the advent of technology and a greatly evolved understanding of how we learn. With over £40bn being spent on new schools through Building Schools for the Future, the DCSF asked three teams to work with two schools each to reinvent science departments. As the Project Manager and Lead Consultant of the DEGW Project Faraday team, Tom Weaver was at the cutting edge of a design process that started from the basis of how science was learned, pedagogies, and created learning settings to best support that, instead of sticking with the paradigm that science could only be taught in a traditional laboratory. In this talk, Tom speaks about the briefing and design process that any school, Local Authority or company within the BSF sector could learn from.

What they say

"As part of our preparation for Building Schools for the Future many Wolverhampton school management teams benefited from Tom’s unique experience, insights and ideas. He is an engaging speaker who inspires, motivates and provide practical help in delivering innovative and relevant solutions for 21st century working, living and learning."
Tim Westwood, BSF Programme Director, Wolverhampton City Council


Remembering, and Learning

Apr 27

Written by: Tom Weaver
Monday, April 27, 2009 

For several years I've been increasingly of the opinion that too much of learning is still focussed on memorization, despite the fact that pedagogy is increasingly moving towards understanding.

Yet a recent re-entry into the formal learning environment myself, learning French, has made me realize that remembering still has an important part to play.

In the 1900s, the dominant pedagogy of schooling was rote learning, whereby pupils were taught facts until they stuck, and as they became older their life experiences would cause them to create connections between those facts.  This evolved over the decades as our understanding of learning changed.

Today we can spent a lot of time looking at learning processes which favour understanding over memorization, such as project based learning.  The idea that learning by doing is better for us is popular - even if it sometimes uses dodgy research.

Yet one cannot deny that remembering has an important place alongside all this.  Learning French again has shown me that no matter how much I listen to audio tapes or engage in conversations as part of my learning process in order to learn by context as opposed to translation, actually memorizing vocabulary is still important to be able to express myself. Utilising that vocabulary is then important, of course.

So what?  Well, if memory is still important (we can't access Google directly from our brains just yet) then when do we ever spend time helping people learn how to remember better and assist them in retention?

Firstly, there are a wide variety of memory techniques which young people should be taught so that they become habits early on in life.  Derren Brown's recent book Tricks of the Mind has an excellent selection using linking systems, loci systems and peg systems, which in turn allow you to remember lists, long numbers, names, complex lists (such as football scores or historical dates with multiple bits of data) and even unordered lists.  

Secondly, there is a variety of software, such as the excellent freeware Anki, which is an e-flashcard system built for assisting you to remember things through a reviewing and testing process that is intelligently spaced out.  According to the Chronicle of HE, two psychology journals have recently published papers showing that "when students study on their own, 'active recall' — recitation, for instance, or flashcards and other self-quizzing — is the most effective way to inscribe something in long-term memory."  Interestingly, the chronicle also addresses the controversy: does rote memorization come at the expense of a deeper learning experience? My sense is that it possibly does, which is why it is controversial in a more modern learner-centric age, but that does not mean it is not a part of a greater learning experience.

Finally, there is an increasing amount of research suggesting that sleep is a critical part of the memorisation process, as well as solving problems or triggering inspiration.  If that's the case, should we not be making it a bigger priority than it currently is in most learning experiences? Many next generation workplaces are experimenting with powernap spaces - perhaps we should build them into our schools too!

 

 

 

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