problem is going to be that those theories you mention - and more - are all still seen to be relevant by some. theories of education have splintered and are numerous and you'll find that there are many schools representing many ways of teaching, all with the idea that their way is best.

so now, like a lot of things in american life, it comes down to choice. there are no right answers.

best bet may be to contact someone in the education dept at a local university. the people who teach the history and development of exactly those theories in which you're interested to other would-be teachers and counselors.

you'll boggle your mind if you look at the history of elementary school design over the last 40 yrs. architects have followed the trends and - in some cases - designed the trends in such as way that the buildings became so didactic that they were doomed to failure.

best bet for your design project (separate from your research) - and especially if you were designing a 'real' school - would be a building that could accommodate each decades' evolution in educational thinking: how could a school administration bring their new ideas to bear without drastically changing the fabric of the school?

I believe it is generally accepted that there is no true primary method of learning for any group of children; this is why good teachers are those who come at their subject by all different methods. I've read quite a bit about the basic notion that children of very young ages (0-5) learn through a) interaction with their environment and b) the ability to abstractly assign their own meanings to things. By which I mean: the theory that a child with say, a "peeing doll" will pick it up, make it pee, and then put it down; now satisfied that the doll has done what it is "supposed" to do, there is nothing left to do with that doll. By contrast, a doll with no specific purpose can be made to be anything. Similarly, wooden blocks can be abstractified and formed into anything the child wants; dress-up clothes and puppets and all kinds of things like that encourage children to learn through creating their own environments and toys. Think of it as the "faceless doll" concept. I personally think this idea has some applicability to architecture without forcing your building to become, as steven pointed out, so didactic that it is doomed to failure.

However, I have only done my one random spotting reading in this area as I am interested in it; I have no idea what any accepted theology on child-rearing would be and have zero experience in it myself. I'm just sharing some things I've always found interesting as to how they can apply to architecture environments.

i'll just say that my opinion is as a parent of a soon to be 5 y.o. and another 8 y.o. the rigorous adherence to a theory by a school appears to be somewhat less important than a skilled teacher who is able to identify the learning style of the individual child, and then tailor the teaching/work to that style.

i really liked the california elementary schools that were built in the early-60's. my classrooms were all the same, but they rocked in their simplicity. north wall was all glazing except a continuous countertop w/ storage, east wall was blackboard, south wall had the door and high clerestories for cross-ventilation, west wall had storage & cubbies.
it helped that my elem school was sited in a small valley/depression so we had landscaping visible outside our windows.

and a great big fuck-off to the default primary color schemes used by those cretin architects and designers who think kids like/need that. my 5 y.o. is more visually discerning and sophisticated than most adults i know.

don't forget about waldorf.

I'm not a building expert but i did grow up around a lot of kids. So u should consider not just the children but also the person who will be teaching them. It might be cute to make everything child size but don't forget that the building has to accommodate the people in charge of them.
I think you should make the room bright and energetic but not distracting, because otherwise they won't be listening to the teacher, they'll be looking up at the ceiling at the amazing ceiling detail.

And as to the learning and visual patterns i suggest that you find a syllabus or curriculum for a preschool class and see what kind of things that they are supposed to be learning, and then you can infuse them in your design.

I cannot stand the stupid primary color scheme bullshit as well, el jeffe. Actually I have argued with principals in two firms over that very issue.

Neutra's theories and school prototypes were responsible for a lot of those schools you are describing, el jeffe. I agree, they are fantastic. Original Poster, do some research on Neutra's ideas on school environments.

Unfortunately, I went through the 70s (re)vision of California schoolbuildings... dank, dark-painted-wood-sided holes, most of them, with "open plan" classrooms at the interior (no windows!) where you could barely concentrate on what your teacher was saying due to having to overhear what the two teachers in the classrooms on either side of yours was saying. (No full-height walls!) Ugh, what a terrible period in school design. Awful lurid orange carpeting and dark brown desks that looked like a black hole reaching up to swallow you down into boredom and desolation.

were the buildings hexagonal in plan too?
sounds like a walter netsch nightmare mantaray...

Actually, the interior "open plan" portion was hexagonal, yes! Ha ha, Walter Netsch nightmare... I've only been in one of his buildings and it was much more thoughtful than what I'm describing. Funny, though. :)

Reading on Montessori method would be very important. She figured out how children learn through physical and visual arrangements of objects. Those objects and their physical presentation in the classroom is very easy to understand and does not vary substantially from school to school. So she presents a direct line between child cognition -----> built environment. If you agree with her, great; if not, she gives you a very clear system against which to react.

this is just a side thing but you should look at rudolf arnhiem's book Art and Visual Perception. There is a chapter in it about how children develop visual communication abilities, and lots of other references to architecture and spatial relationships that we perceive such as gestaults and the like.

It appears that you have researched Piaget and perhaps Abraham Maslow and Lawrence Kolberg? Kolberg proposed 6 stages of social/moral development that directly relate to development of cognition and perception of space.

There are excellent resources at University of Minnesota's InformeDesign.

You will also find some (less design-oriented) research at the British Psychological Society's Research Digest

I'd also recommend a look at Dan Lockton's Architetures of Control: Design with Intent though this is not directly related to school design. It is relevant.

Among other things worth considering are the effect of the environment on sub-groups of the school population: autism-spectrum, ADHD, deaf, physically impaired...

Sarah Wigglesworth spoke about her Mossbrook school for learning disbled/autistic kids. A cracking project. However, totally ignorant of the research showing that for autistic kids, bright colours are absolutely overpowering, like huge flashing neon billboards.

Off-gassing. Use of materials that are non-toxic from day 1 is difficult.

For the developmental side of Psychology, or indeed any part of Psychology, the two schools of practice/thought that matter at the moment are "Positive Psychology" and Neuropsychology. A few google searches with these terms should reveal some gems.

Thank you all so much for your responses. This type of information is exactly what I was looking for.
I started reading "Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius", and the Montessori method has a lot of promise as a theory to interpret architecturally. I was surprised to learn that Piaget did some of his research in one of Montessori's schools.
I am going to pick up some Neutra books at the library. A lot of great resources were mentioned. Thanks for taking the time to respond and help me out.

What I am doing now is diagramming the different determinants: site, program, education theory, climate, and patterning. In order to figure out how the different areas can coincide or collide. Patterning is in there because I am looking at how people perceive things visually in patterns and how our brains fill in missing information (Gestalt). I wonder if a patterned building skin, for example, could serve as shading device and learning tool for children also.

a word of advice - be careful about how you handle the notion of perception of space and your ability to control that perception. Realize that you cannot control or dictate one's individual reaction to a space that you design. You can only stack the deck a certain way, and hope for the anticpated result, or in other words, "provide the condition for" as compared to assuming you can evoke a desired experience.

The issue with patterning and diagramming that response to patterning is how to quantify the possible outcomes of interpretation of a given pattern. It's thin ice, so it would be good to focus on what you can control, rather than trying to design something that will evoke a similar response in all the users of a space.