Trends in Learning Space Design – Brown M. & Long P.

Follow-up to Seriously Cool Places: The Future of Learning–Centered Built Environments – William Dittoe from Inspires Learning - Robert O'Toole

Chapter 9 of the Educause Learning Spaces¹ e-book. The shift towards constructivism is summarised:

Previously, teaching was most often a kind of “broadcast” of course content at regularly scheduled intervals, from an expert to student “receivers.” The learning literature agrees that learning can be enhanced, deepened, and made more meaningful if the curriculum makes the learners active participants through interactivity, multiple roles (such as listener, critic, mentor, presenter), and social engagement (such as group work, discussion boards, wikis). s.9.2

The task is to translate specific activities and patterns from constructivism into actual learning design implementations.

Constructivist learning principles, specifically activities identified as encouraging learning, can be translated into design principles that guide tactical decisions, ensuring that the designs we build and the technology we deploy serve a clear educational purpose. This suggests a design methodology with a clear “genealogy” having constructivist principles as the “parent” of design principles leading to specific tactics that support and enhance learning. s.9.3

An interesting example is given, but not substantially developed:

Or, consider metacognition — the learner’s active assessment of his or her own learning. Such a learning principle might lead to the creation of explicit points or locations that will encourage and enable this self-assessment with the instructor’s assistance. s.9.3

Such metacognition enabling spaces could be consistent with the ideation spaces described by Tim Brown in his article on Design Thinking² (see this review). What might such a metacognition enabling/encouraging space be like? Would the student use it to build and test a cognitive prototype - an argument, a narrative, a map? How would it get tested? Peer review? Faculty? What kind of support could be provided? For example, perhaps a graduate student could be available on an open drop-in basis to support undergraduates in creating and testing their cognitive prototypes? Or maybe a software application could help them to formulate and test their prototype?

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¹Oblinger, D. Learning Spaces, Educause e-book, 2006 (available for download at http://www.educause.edu/learningspaces)

² Brown, T. Design Thinking, Harvard Business Review, June 2008

Robert O'Toole : 09 Jul 2009 22:31 |  Tags: Bibliography Chapter Educause Inspiration |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem