A recent white paper from the Research Foundation of McGraw-Hill (yes, the big textbook publisher) has examined what the physical arrangements might look like for classrooms of the future that focus more on technology.  The paper, titled Reimagining the Classroom: Opportunities to Link Recent Advances in Pedagogy to Physical Settings, looks at how classroom design needs to change to better incorporate technology-enriched learning.  

Moreover, it discusses SCALE-UP (“Student-Centered Active Learning Environment for Undergraduate Programs"), a use of digital and physical technologies in a classroom environment to support interactive and collaborative learning.  This classroom design and matching pedagogy, introduced by Dr. Robert Beichner, professor of physics at North Carolina State University, has been used in over 100 institutions in the U.S. and abroad. It is conceivable that far more attention on classroom design will occur in the next decade, as teachers see how the old classroom designs no longer foster the kind of learning environment needed for technology and collaboration.

Here is an article from today's Sacramento Bee discussing the white paper.

What do you think?  Do you believe that physical classroom layout needs to change to better incorporate technology, or is the current design adequate?