Students in Space: Student Practices in Non-Traditional Classrooms (original) (raw)

Spaces where learning takes place: Rethinking contemporary approaches to learning and teaching

Proceedings of The Annual International Conference of the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia (HERDSA), AUT University, Auckland, New Zealand, 1-4 July., 2013

This paper discusses a variety of approaches to utilising different spaces, places and environments to make learning and teaching in higher education more effective, socially engaging, and relevant. It starts with the proposition that, in anthropological and pedagogical sense, spaces only become places through human action and imagination, the two essential human qualities critical for acquiring, applying and creating new knowledge. In addition to reflecting on different learning spaces and places, the authors discuss students’ experiences with spatial (and social) contexts applied in the postgraduate unit Contemporary Learning Environments, an integral part of Monash’s Graduate Certificate in Academic Practice. While the paradigms of experiential, reflexive and blended learning have been the underpinning pedagogical philosophies of this unit, an attempt has been made to closely align learning content with learning contexts by conducting the ‘classes beyond the classrooms’—in public places such as museums, community centres and parks as well as in more traditional venues like seminar rooms, lecture theatres and simulation labs. Upon finishing the unit, the students completed the standard Student Evaluation of Teaching and Units (SETU). While providing an analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data from the students’ evaluation and feedback, the paper goes beyond a mere audit of the unit—arguing that learning and teaching in higher education, even when they take place in a ‘purely’ virtual environment, still remain deeply embodied and meaningful social events situated in real places rather than in some dislocated, depersonalised ‘non-place’.

Is the classroom obsolete in the twenty-first century?

Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2016

Lefebvre's triadic conception of spatial practice, representations of space and representational spaces provides the theoretical framework of this article, which recognises a productive relationship between space and social relations. Its writing stems from a current and ongoing qualitative study of innovative teaching and learning practices in new technology-rich flexible learning spaces, characterised by large open spaces, permeable boundaries and diverse furnishings emphasising student comfort, health and flexibility. Schooling in the twenty-first century, certainly in the developed world, is required to ensure that children and school-leavers have appropriate lifelong skills in preparation for participation in the twenty-first century knowledge economy. This world is characterised as complex and dynamic, deeply influenced by globalisation and the revolution in digital technology. Developing these skills calls into question 'outmoded' transmission models of teaching and requires teachers and school leaders to approach their work in radically new ways. Open school design encourages flexibility in learning and teaching, and allows collaborative, team teaching, with designers claiming significant educational benefits. This arrangement of multiple classes using innovatively designed, technology-enriched common space, facilitated by multiple teachers, working in collaborative teams, is far-reaching in its likely implications for community expectations and responses, relationshipbuilding, assessment, student learning, teachers' work and initial teacher education.

Changing spaces: Preparing students and teachers for a new learning environment

Physical settings in schools have a complex relationship to teaching and learning practices. Uncomfortable tensions can result when the intentions of learners and teachers conflict with each other or with the affordances of the environment. Change may be difficult to achieve and stressful for those involved. This paper considers a case where there has been minimal involvement of staff or students in the design of a new school, but there is a desire to prepare them for the changed environment. Changes will include an integrated curriculum and an “enquiry approach,” which it is hoped will be facilitated by large, shared spaces in the new premises. We discuss an “experimental week” of enquiry learning that took place in the middle of the 2010-11 school year with half of the Year 8 group (12-13 years old) in an existing large space (a school hall). Thus the alteration to the learning environment combined changes to the use of space and to the organization of learning time. We concentrate here on the student experience of learning in this new way, rather than the views of the teachers. Overall, students enjoyed the experimental week. An enquiry based approach was enabled by the more fluid, flexible use of school space and time, but students understood the experiment to be a limited experience. If these changed practices are to be successful they will need to be accepted as more permanent. The challenge for those managing the change process is to remain mindful of the differing needs of students, and continue to develop a shared understanding among staff and students of what learning is or could be.

Editorial: Perspectives on Spaces for Teaching and Learning

2018

… I believe that the anxiety of our era has to do fundamentally with space, no doubt a great deal more than with time. (Foucault, 1984, p.2) This special issue focuses on a wide range of Perspectives on Spaces for Teaching and Learning. Discussion on this theme began in a series of questions following a PhD Conference at the University of Aberdeen in 2017 on 'Perspectives on Space(s) in Our Research Contexts'. What spaces are offered or used for when teaching and learning take place today is worth further investigation locally as well as universally. As we all encounter different educational contexts, cultures, societal needs and technological achievements, it is not possible to conceptually limit spaces offered for teaching and learning into what they represent for each individual practitioner or researcher. Instead, different arguments can broaden individual perspectives and benefit all, while leading to self-reflection for one's own research perspectives.

Learning spaces and pedagogic change: envisioned, enacted and experienced

Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 2015

Building on work in how spaces of learning can contribute to the broader policy agenda of achieving pedagogic change, this article takes as its context the Building the Education Revolution infrastructure programme in Australia. Deploying a sociomaterial approach to researching learning spaces and pedagogic change and drawing on data from interviews conducted with senior leaders, teachers and students in schools with flexible learning spaces, we report on pedagogic change as envisioned for, and enacted and experienced in, these spaces. It was found that there is no causal link between learning spaces and pedagogic change. Rather, pedagogic change is encompassed within multiple sets of relations and multiple forms of practice. We see promise for the emerging field of learning spaces in thinking about space from a relational, sociomaterial perspective. This approach pursues a non-dualist analysis of the space-pedagogy relation and offers less deterministic causal accounts of change than those that are commonly made in the popular and policy literatures.

Belonging in Space: Informal Learning Spaces and the Student Experience

Journal of Learning Spaces , 2018

In the face of diverse challenges to traditional higher education (HE) models, creating and defining the value of an on‐campus student experience has become a key concern for HE institutions. Originating in response to these challenges, The Belonging Project seeks to improve the student experience in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. As part of its pilot initiatives, we worked to refurbish an existing but underused space in the School, the Atelier. This paper documents the refurbishment and its outcomes, while situating the process within a broader literature on student engagement and transition.

Which space? Whose space? An experience in involving students and teachers in space design

Teaching in Higher Education, 2017

To date, learning spaces in higher education have been designed with little engagement on the part of their most important users: students and teachers. In this paper, we present the results of research carried out in a UK university. The research aimed to understand how students and teachers conceptualise learning spaces when they are given the opportunity to do so in a workshop environment. Over a number of workshops, participants were encouraged to critique a space prototype and to re-design it according to their own views and vision of learning spaces to optimise pedagogical encounters. The findings suggest that the active involvement of students and teachers in space design endows participants with the power of reflection on the pedagogical process, which can be harnessed for the actual creation and innovation of learning spaces.

Changing spaces of education: New perspectives on the nature of learning

International Review of Education, 2013

Fundamental changes in international educational policies, increasingly porous borders and new communication technologies are changing the physical nature of schools and learning and, as a result, researchers and scholars must find new perspectives to frame their work.