Flexibility prepares students for careers of the future
There's a lot to learn at the Wichita Falls Independent School District's Career Education Center. From engineering and cosmetology to welding and floral design, the center offers more than two dozen career paths to about 1,200 students from three high schools in the north Texas school district.
The center is flexible enough to shift its curriculum to meet the evolving employment needs of the surrounding community and global workforce. Administrators pay close attention to what's happening with employment trends and offer classes aimed at helping students secure in-demand centers.
The class offerings are as flexible as the learning spaces. The facility was designed from the outset to change with the need of students and educators.
Buildings able to adapt to new or multiple uses - while serving a diverse group of users - is the core of designing for community, an idea becoming increasingly prevalent in discussions between architecture and design firms and customers.
Michelle Wood, Career Education Center CoordinatorKI's furniture solutions give classes the flexibility to manipulate learning arrangements, as well as the freedom to move and change any of our spaces as our community and workforce needs change and new curriculum is introduced.
The variety of instruction at the $28 million Career Education Center creates a unique mix of spaces on campus, from high-ceiling workspaces and laboratories to areas more akin to traditional classrooms. To accommodate the spectrum of learning spaces, flexible and reconfigurable KI products are found throughout the center.
Nesting Pirouette tables and products from the Ruckus and Learn2 collections provide users options for space configuration, flexibility and mobility while computer labs offer sit-stand options with Toggle adjustable tables, used in concert with Trellis power and data systems.
Community design and collaboration go together. Some of the best ideas and innovative approaches are developed when and where collaboration can occur. Wood points to Sway seating, and Hub modular seating for boosting use of lounge areas by students and teachers.
"It's very common to see teachers taking students into public spaces as a way to facilitate greater collaboration," Wood said.
With the flexiblity to change with the world around it, the Wichita Falls Independent School District's Career Education Center is setting its sights on meeting the needs of students and employers into the future.
