Spatial design and organisational structures can make a collection of people feel like they are part of a community.

The built environment should reinforce the idea that, in personalised learning, the learners and faculty together form a community of learners that should interact with the broader community in which they are located. Community integration can happen on two levels: the immediate learning environment; and the wider outside community in both physical spaces and through virtual networks.

In the immediate learning environment, literature has shown that small learning communities have been found to increase student achievement as it provides opportunities for quality student-teacher interaction. It is within these smaller communities where the school culture is really experienced.

Spatially, community integration has also already manifested itself directly in school designs that draw on urban metaphors (e.g. the ‘learning street’) in an effort to create a stronger community feel in schools.

Integration with the outside community, and spaces located off-site or virtually can supplement or replace learner spaces. Learning communities are being integrated into schools to help in contextualising knowledge and promoting lifelong learning.

This is especially evident in higher education where there are networks connecting students with the business community to better prepare them and enable a smoother transition into the world of work.

An extreme implementation of this would be a full integration of all of a community’s social services by housing them all together in one facility.

Learning through a community goes beyond the traditional one-way flow of information (such as a teacher instructing the student) and provides a more ‘authentic’ learning experience, paralleling the learning style they have in their personal lives. Learning theory suggests that interactions occurring in a community that are more active, participatory and experiential allow for deeper and more meaningful learning to take place.

In summary, in the knowledge age, educational learning space should enable connections. Learning is a social process and the most memorable experiences involve connections with others.

These connections can be spatial, verbal, through observation, and from both the immediate learning environment and the outside world.