Woods Bagot recently commissioned Global Strategy Group, a prominent research firm, to conduct an online survey of over 500 elite business decision-makers across North America.

The results show that graduates are falling short of expectations, especially on highly valued attributes like problem solving, collaboration, written communications and critical-thinking skills, while they are exceeding expectations on little-valued social media and technology skills.

How do we prepare students to meet these 21st century demands? The answer lies not just in new approaches to teaching and embracing technology. Our challenge requires a complementary spacial response - education environments that inspire collaboration, drive curiosity and foster leadership.

To accomplish this, Woods Bagot believes the future learning environment should reflect four main themes:

Technologically Enabled
Technology has transformed the ways students access information. Teachers no longer need to spend most of their time transmitting information. They can instead nurture and facilitate the transformation of information into knowledge.

Collaborative
If the information which used to be transferred to the student in a classroom can now be accessed anytime and anywhere, then the primary role of a learning environment is to facilitate a social exchange among learners and between learners and teachers.

Flexible
Flexibility emerges as the most important characteristic of a collaborative learning environment. Flexibility in facilitating a variety of modes of social exchange, flexibility in responding to the particular needs of the participants, and the potential for quick and spontaneous reconfiguration of these relationships.

Fun
One of the most significant barriers to a student developing a culture of lifelong learning is boredom. As designers, we take very seriously the need to create enjoyment in learning through stimulation, discovery, recognition, and, yes, fun.