Learning Spaces of the Future (ComETS event)

Roberto Rengel from the School of Human Ecology provided some frameworks for thinking about spaces. His background is in interior design and architecture, as well as corporate space design. He talked about enduring characteristics of learning activities and learners.   A good place is convenient, safe, functional, comfortable, inspiring, and multidimensional. Multidimensional spaces address the person as a whole (individual, social, complex)… because people are different in their characteristics and circumstances, designers of informal spaces need to account for different personalities and tasks. Other issues include acoustical properties and luminous environment (combination of natural and artificial lighting), warmth. Inspiration can come from style, furniture, materials, colors and graphics. For a space to be used, it should be part of something bigger than itself.

Carole Turner and Tom Wise talked about “Classrooms of the future.” The learning environment should be technology-rich, take into account leraning outcomes, and blending experiences inside and outside the classroom. Every space on campus should contribute to the learning experience. We discussed whether classroom time is a chance to cover material or facilitate learning. There were two views: that a variety of learning spaces enable learning outside the classroom, so that the classroom time can be used to frame ideas; and that technology enables delivery of content outside the classroom so that the classroom time can be used to facilitate learning through a variety of activities. Tom Wise talked about the FP&M process for buildings: program statement, design development, design/drawings review, bid documents, construction process.  FP&M has “Classroom Design Principles.”   The UW Madison Master Plan includes Education (out to bid), Biochemistry, WID, SOHE, Sterling (L&S), and Union South.

Because I facilitated the panel, I didn’t take notes there or finish this post until today.  The panelists were Cal Bergman (Housing), Jo Ann Carr (School of Education), Carrie Kruse (College Library), and John Staley (Infolabs).  Each presented “on the ground” experiences designing learning spaces.

A lot of interesting perspectives were shared, but the most important outcome seemed to be communication and information-sharing.

“Innovation, Learning, and Learning Spaces”

At lunch, I participated in this Malcolm Brown ELI Web seminar. UW is an institutional member of the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative.  I was interested in this one because Malcolm Brown was on the faculty of the ELI Institute I attended, and his explanations of abstract ideas work well for the way I learn.  A few interesting snippets:

• “The best way to get a good idea is to get a lot of ideas.”  Linus Pauling.
• “Implementation is the hardest part of innovation.”  This is interesting to me because I usually think of myself as an implementer, which doesn’t have the glamour associated with new ideas, R&D, etc.  I like the idea that implementation is part of innovation.  There are so many decisions and abilities required to keep a process open but moving toward a successful outcome.   I think there’s an interesting study in how “big ideas”/implementation are valued in an organization, if anyone wants to chat about it more.
• Librarians were mentioned often in this talk as key collaborators and stakeholders.
• There was some discussion of motiviting faculty to use “incubator classrooms” and diffuse innovations.  This is a discussion we had here last week at a meeting about the incubator classroom idea, and I got some new lingo to describe those ideas…. “observability,” for example.
• Apparently, Crit Stuart from ARL talked about Learning Spaces at the ELI Fall Focus Session: “The Research Library as a Center of Learning: Noteworthy Trends and Complementary Assessment Efforts.” Something I’ll look at more later.
• In evaluating innovations, focus on what people do, not what they say.

The web site at the top includes the slides and a lot of good resources.  There are a few campus events about learning spaces coming up: a Delta dinner and a ComETS event.