See the WIKI . Good discussion wt ideas for followup cf Mudd reno.
In case the link is lost, here is the WIKI text…
What are the learning practices for 2010?
Terraced lecture hall – Inca terraces at University of Melbourne. Originally a raked design. Now for about 48 originally 60. Faculty stands in the middle – like the Star Wars briefing.
Take out the raked seating and level it out. Test out small group work. Even turning to the row behind you is limited. Sight line issues.
“Oh by the way learning” – why not put those outside the room as well?
Breakout spaces if you have the square footage. Faculty offices not located in same spaces. What can be done outside the classroom?
Case study: 230 seat lecture hall, Biology.
In 2011 – how many institutions will be teaching courses with this many students? Many (half?). We can’t limit the number of students in the room.
In 2011 there will be better ways of assigning space. An opportunity to look at adjacencies.
How do we introduce interactivity into a large group audience? For Life Sciences building, the cost of construction materials force them into a more modest process.
University of Dayton (see ELI Learning Spaces book) – smaller classrooms ultimately but hallways connecting classrooms become usable spaces – take students out into the public space. Volume hasn’t been a problem – the buzz is appreciated. Quasi-formal learning spaces. A large lecture breaks into teams using these spaces, then recombines.
The Math Emporium (at Virginia Tech) is an old Rose’s department store. Places for many types of learning, and the acoustics are great.
Similar challenge – 125 seats – early 90′s at Arizona State. Tiered lecture halls. Lobbied for space, but not tiered. Leveling the room allowed for more types of interaction. Kalidoscope room – a wheel / spoke design, with faculty at the center. Spokes of flexible seating.
Similar to Dayton: a business school building with auditorium had another space broken into cubicles. In each partitioned area was a conference room space to accommodate 8 people. 5 or 6 of these cubicles in one area. More spaces for students to work on group projects. It could be open extended hours, available outside of class time.
From the student session (Apple): More global, more online learning, less classroom learning.
Large lecture complimented by smaller discussion sessions throughout the week. Use technology to make discussion sessions more meaningful. Not a space solution as much as using technology.
Budgets won’t be better in 2011. Using space wisely will be the name of the game. Let a lecture hall be what it is and use smaller spaces for breakout.
Another question: what would clickers be in 2011?
Tablet arms in lecture halls: could those arms be more cleverly designed to make a table when brought together?
The paper-thin display is just a matter of time. Bringing tables togther with this kind of technology could be useful. Patent that!
Get away from fixed seating and tablet arms. Ergonomically not good for learning. Do away with them and move to mobile table and chair. Fixed piece could be a digital display linked to screens around the room. Get away from fixed elements.
Narrow chairs get lots of people in a room but inhibit learning, especially for students with notebook computers and anything else.
Resist fixed things as much as possible.
Are you considering power? Malcolm: not considering at present. Wait for wireless power. Relying on coming battery life, solid state. Another school: 2 outlets for every 6 students.
The Atlas Center – didn’t have enough power. Laptop checkouts – a bit of a mess. People weren’t sitting where there wasn’t power.
Student spaces, like the Library, are different. They need power. A lecture hall for 1 hour can get by without power.
A librarian disagrees: look at students throughout the day, not just for one class or classroom.
You’re planning for 30-40 years – to 2060. Don’t assume that one laptop per student is optimal – it could be one laptop per two students.
Laptops and technology require cooling too. HVAC has to be designed to accommodate.
Is there an intent to make the building a neighborhood for students in the discipline? Yes – hallways. Science in Sight: exhibits of biology, how green the building is. Atrium space. Biggest struggle has been the traditional classroom space. Waterfalls in the atrium, but the lecture hall is the same.
Think about the character of the activity you expect in those spaces. Once the activities are identified, configure the space. What will the learning practices be? Interactivity, dispersing & getting back together…
Configuring spaces to be attractive outside of class time. Lighting can do much of this. Bring in revenue if the room can be used in different ways. Why not turn your classroom into a rock concert? Before 9 AM or after 2 PM – traditional class times – what activities do we want to enable?
Student success center (Southern Illinois) – having a Library presence out into the academic disciplines. Students like to talk to librarians face to face.
Question: physical vs. virtual presences? Could a librarian attend a class virtually? University of Oregon: Second Life, remote classroom, both? Synchronous distance learning – lighting at remote sites is important. Think about video grade lighting.
One school has put small offices out “in the field” for multiple services – this has been well received. San Jose State.
What kind of support for capturing will we need? More than capturing the front of the classroom. Now it’s focused on capturing instruction, but capturing student participants will be increasingly important. UC Santa Cruz – webcams in labs for security purposes generated faculty discontent. They didn’t want to be recorded (Homeland Security). Could it be optional? This trickled down to students. Who chooses what gets recorded?
Teacher podium has the video control panel. Move the document camera to the ceiling and it can also see the room for security.
The amount of time a student spends in the lecture is 4% of their day. The lecture space needs to be thought of for things other than just the lecture. You can’t screw it up too badly, but you could lose many opportunities.
How do you deal with the group working in a common space? Workgroup screens vs. class screens. Future of displays: they can be on the floor, you unroll them, change the color of your car today. The informal campfire. If it’s there in 2011 we may not have to build much into the room. (Mark Lundy)
Handheld projectors that project 640 x 480 are already available. Phil Long predicts your cell phone will be your projector. This is what makes planning the space challenging. Will they work? Will they be affordable? CRT vs. LCD: how deep do you make the workspace?
Ubiquitous and mobile displays will be a big change. What will we spend money on (big expensive displays), and what do we do to support for what will be brought into our spaces?
With the expansion of web-based applications you can have a true thin client.
Can we share from the screen of our iPhones to projectors in classrooms?
Other types of activities? Or do we predict what will happen?
Discipline-specific mashups: bioinformatics, geonomics.
3D display technologies: what impact will they have.
Much of what we discuss here is what our students will be doing, but will the faculty have changed by 2011?
We’re planning for 2011 but really we’re thinking about 2015 technologies and making a space that facilitates learning then too.
Faculty still come to class with stacks of transparencies. How do you move the faculty forward? Clickers were grassroots, but adoption is hard to influence, hard to guess.
The best we can do is bring early adopters on board, but you have to hedge your bets. You can’t abandon the old. One room traditional, one room advanced.
Thinking about 2015: in addition to planning learning spaces differently, you have to be prepared to fund for new changes.