All 3 entries tagged Educause

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) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Seriously Cool Places: The Future of Learning–Centered Built Environments – William Dittoe

Follow-up to Challenging Traditional Assumptions and Rethinking Learning Spaces – Nancy Chism from Inspires Learning - Robert O'Toole

Chapter 2 of the Educause Learning Spaces¹ e-book finds William Dittoe (of Educational Facilities Consultants, LLC) describing an experimental learning space design from the Marianist Hall at the University of Dayton. The facility contains many of the now familiar features (informal and reconfigurable furniture, wifi, screens, whiteboards, cafe). However, it is deployed within the curriculum in quite a radical way. The space is dedicated to a single group of students. Their curriculum is constructed around the capabilities of the space. Other students at Dayton follow more traditional patterns.

As Dittoe explains:

The key, therefore, is to provide a physical space that supports multidisciplinary, team-taught, highly interactive learning unbound by traditional time constraints within a social setting that engages students and faculty and enables rich learning experiences. s.3.9

A day in the life of a student is documented, illustrating just how far the curriculum, teaching and learning methods, and the space are from the norm. The whole day is spent in the space, working with other students and faculty according to a variety of patterns each suited to a particular purpose. The timetable is devised to fit the teaching, rather than the teaching being forced into inappropriate slots. Learning is a continuum of concentrations and movements:

To provide the proper space for teaching and learning, we need more than a single place—educational activities are organic; they ebb and flow. What we really require is a complex of spaces—interconnected and related spaces designed to support learning. s.3.9

This raises a challenging question for all those universities who have rushed headlong into creating new learning spaces. Perhaps without a complimentary redevelopment of the curriculum, organisation, teaching and learning methods, the potential of such spaces is never exploited.

I'm also wondering about what kind of technology is required to support this kind of learning continuum, with an ebb and flow between spaces (offline and online)?
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¹Oblinger, D. Learning Spaces, Educause e-book, 2006 (available for download at http://www.educause.edu/learningspaces)

Robert O'Toole : 08 Jul 2009 21:17 |  Tags: Bibliography Chapter Educause Inspiration |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Challenging Traditional Assumptions and Rethinking Learning Spaces – Nancy Chism

In the opening chapter of the Educause e-book on Learning Spaces¹, Nancy Chism efficiently marshalls the key arguments that underpin the various trends in new learning space design. Evidence from environmental psychology and cognitive theory is only briefly mentioned:

Environments that provide experience, stimulate the senses, encourage the exchange of information, and offer opportunities for rehearsal, feedback, application, and transfer are most likely to support learning. s.2.4

Content-transmission oriented learning spaces (usually those with a rigidly defined single point of focus) are identified as being contrary to and blocking the ambitions of social constructivist pedagogy.

However, Chism is more concerned to demonstrate a conflict between the constraints offered by traditional learning spaces and our new kinds of learners:

The entry of large numbers of previously underrepresented students—students from ethnic cultures that stress social interaction, older students, students blending work and learning—also calls for environments in which social interchange and experiential learning are valued. s.2.5

There is then an impact upon efforts to widen participation. And worse still, more common varieties of student (young, wealthy, gadget loaded) are equally alienated:

The argument doesn’t include just nontraditional students, however. Characterizations of Net Generation students extend similar considerations to current traditional students in reinforcing the need for social space and technology access.

Chism goes on to describe the kinds of learning space in which the Net Gen might feel at home (sounds just like Warwick's Learning Grid), followed by an exploration of the key characteristics if spaces that could be designed to meet these needs: flexibility, comfort, sensory stimulation, technology support, decenteredness, the studio classroom, information-commons/collaboratory, living-learning spaces, corridor niches. "Technology support" refers to the need for a continuum of technology across space and time. "Decenteredness" is a concept deserving of much more attention: do we really mean decentered spaces, or rather spaces in which concentratory spaces can be constituted and dissipated as required? This lends itself to a more sophisticated understanding of space and cognition (cue Deleuze and Guattari).

The closing sections of the chapter consider practical and strategic concerns: given the massive investment in existing learning infrastructure, how might change be possible?

The cultural change required in thinking of space in a new way should not be underestimated. s.2.9

Chism gives some good basic advice. The trick is to start exploiting whatever small opportunities present themselves. The current refurbishments of Humanities Building seminar rooms are a good example of this opportunism.

However, to achieve more significant progress requires a deeper and more fundamental shift, which may only be achieved with much sound reasoning and evidence. Chism stresses the need for research (begging the rhetorical question: "you're already making big claims, but you say that real research is needed?"):

...we need more research on the impact of existing and experimental spaces on learning. We need basic research on the influence of the physical environment on creativity, attention, and critical thinking. We need applied research on
the effect of different kinds of lighting and furniture on comfort, satisfaction, and interaction. s.2.10

Taking this as a starting point, I will argue that we need much more than that: the research needs to be founded upon a comprehensive, joined-up, robust theoretical and methodological basis for the representation, design, implementation, observation, testing and comparative evaluation of learning spaces.

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

Robert O'Toole : 07 Jul 2009 22:57 |  Tags: Bibliography Chapter Educause Inspiration |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem