Some Thoughts about the Recent ELI webinar on Redesigning Learning Spaces

For a couple of afternoons, we participated in this webinar that focused on redesigning learning spaces with different perspectives and dimensions for success.

One suggestion was the development of a learning spaces master plan that is rooted in the campus master plan and the institution's strategic plan.  The goal would be that all learning spaces, formal and informal, are in an inventory and can be assessed for upgrades, renovations, or reuse.  Over time, this would mean that the university needs to allocate resources to make this happen -- which may be a problem.  Currently, budget numbers seem to suggest that 4/5 of budget for upgrading classrooms goes towards technology while only 1/5 goes to furniture.  Indeed, one suggestion was that we should do with less technology as it needs to be replaced more rapidly than furniture.

We need to construct and redesign with brain and how we learn in mind.  We should consider the different levels of comfort zones.  Often, those spheres are seen as the most inner circle being the comfort zone with another circle the learning or growth zone, and moving to the outermost circle being the panic zone.  However, for this discussion, the zones were Intimate, personal, social, and public -- think of the physical space you are in and how close you let what kinds of people get. As one person put it, it is unethical for us to keep teaching in the traditional, teacher-centered way, unethical to keep building learning spaces this way with what we know about how our brains work.

Consider also that we are aiming for the t-shaped student:

T-shaped student

  T- shaped people have two kinds of abilities. The vertical bar of the T represents depth of expertise in a single field (being an engineer, biologist, computer scientist), whereas the horizontal stroke of the T is the ability to collaborate across the disciplines (being collaborative and empathetic)." http://asmarterplanet.com/studentsfor/blog/2013/07/why-do-you-need-to-become-t-shaped-person.html 








One argument about changing learning spaces from teacher to student centered, active learning spaces is that this will have a consequence fewer students per class.  Possibly so, but I believe that students will be more successful, leading to fewer W and F grades, better retention and graduation rates.  Is there research about this out there yet -- some, but not enough as it is of course rather difficult to show that taking a class in one particular space led to a student's increased success through her academic career.

A couple of other interesting ideas

 -- Maker spaces for prototyping are growing in numbers at other universities
 -- innovative library design:  http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/huntlibrary/photosandvideogallery at North Carolina State

 -- I think having tangram tables would be cool --

tangram