Digital Design Center is CV's "Classroom of the Future"

The classroom of the future isn’t far away, especially for students at Chartiers Valley High School.

The school introduced a Digital Design Center this year, and it certainly looks different—soft chairs and round tables, colorful student artwork on the walls, design and video equipment not typically found in high schools.

It’s the first year for the classroom, and for the Digital Arts Class it houses, and teachers say so far, both are paying off.

“I feel a space like this can be a motivator in itself,” said Digital Arts teacher Chris McHugh. “This atmosphere has an effect on creativity. It’s a place people want to be because of the way it feels, with the understanding that there is serious work to be done.”

The space is a move away from an industrial, manufactured classroom setup with rows of matching brown desks, and toward an atmosphere that fosters creativity and collaboration, he said.

The school district received a STEAM grant to fund the classroom's creation. STEAM—standing for science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics—are available to school district programs that prepare students for 21st-century demands of both colleges and careers.

The grant is awarded by the Grable and Benedum Foundations.

McHugh said he thinks students truly have been more productive in class this year, because both the space and the class offer something they are interested in being part of.

Because students are grouped around tables, the classroom is quieter, McHugh said. The setup allows students to work more closely with each other, and allows him to float more easily between the groups and guide them through classwork.

Students in his Digital Arts class were able to show off their work in April at Chartiers Valley’s first Digital Game Fair, an event that showcased video games students had designed and programmed from scratch.

The equipment in the Digital Design Center heavily contributed to the dominently student-designed and organized project, McHugh said.

And, he said, enrollment in the class for next year has increased.

“We’re staying ahead with the technology,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll be able to keep offering more of this, and more levels of the Digital Arts class.”

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