Activity-Based Workspace

As yet there is little information on how far new pedagogical approaches are really supported by spatial/design concepts aimed at doing so. There is a research grant application in progress in Australia addressing this question. An initial literature review has indicated that a number of key driving factors are evident and also points out the lack of scholarly research on this topic. It appears that open plan – or rather ‘activity-based workplace’ design – has really only been significantly taken up by academics in the creative disciplines such as design, architecture and the creative arts, as well as in commercial offices.

Since around 2007 there has been significant interest in the evaluation of what are collectively known as new generation learning environments (NGLEs). Under this generic name fall active learning classrooms (ALCs), scale up active learning classrooms, the flipped classroom, technology enabled active learning classrooms (TEALs) and conceive, design, implement and operate (CDIO).²⁸

The principal extant hubs of legitimate NGLE research activity – that is, where scholarly evidence-based research aligning space, pedagogy, technology and learning outcomes – are sited at the Universities of Minnesota and Melbourne. At the former, the Office of Classroom Management has undertaken an ongoing evaluation of ALCs with findings showing improved student learning outcomes.²⁹ Additional related work in ALCs in the USA has been carried out at the Central Michigan University³⁰ and at Educause (2015).

Concurrently, at the University of Melbourne, the Learning Environments Applied Research Network (LEaRN, 2015) is embarking on a number of new research projects in this area and the outcome will start to throw more light on this complex subject.

A key outcome of these studies is the need to provide academic professional development for teachers to shift their practice from a teacher-centred model towards a learner-centred technology/online assisted, blended and active learning model working within an NGLE framework.³¹ In developing such NGLEs on a scaled-up basis, Educause has also been active in developing a new ‘learning spaces rating tool’.³²

While Educause is largely focused on the use of technology in teaching and learning, this focus has meant that it has also had to address the need for re-engineering learning spaces to reform the teacher-centred model associated with the predominant model of students in rows all facing the front. This passive form of learning no longer makes the best use of synchronous online learning capabilities offered by new and emerging technologies. Students can and will learn where they have the most active and engaging experience. Now we need to understand how student learning behaviours are evolving in such blended and flipped learning spaces, through the mapping of the digital with the physical.

To achieve this understanding, a study ‘Mapping Complex Learning Spaces’³³ is in its first phase of a five-year project. This study will seek to map student face-to-face interactions in NGLEs, and at the same time map their synchronous virtual activities in using online learning tools. We want to understand what settings students prefer to work in when they are working online, using a variety of tools. These days, student have access to CDIO concept spaces, which adds to the complexity of options, and hence the need for such an evaluation.

Academics are urged by university administration to focus on the cost of delivery of programmes, and this inevitably means there is still a strong retention of the large lecture theatre. The staff:student ratio of 1:300 or 1:500 – or 1:800 in the case of one university in the UK – is at face value a very compelling argument for the retention of lecture theatre pedagogy. But statistics are consistently showing across all universities that, unless student attendance is compulsory, and where the lecture is podcast later on, due to the lack of an active and engaging learning experience student attendance rates drop at an alarming pace, especially in the first three weeks.

Research is showing that this form of passive learning is inadequate and universities will ultimately have to ‘bite the bullet’ and encourage their academic staff to take up synchronous blended face-to-face online pedagogical practice. Evidence is now emerging that this form of learning is superior.³⁴ The question of space is uppermost in both student and academic minds at an early stage in the procurement process, but unless there is a willingness by the university in question to explore large 60–100 student blended active learning spaces, then student learning outcomes in passive learning environments will continue to be sub-optimal.³⁵

The Student Experience

There is now a gradual transformation of spaces towards the aforementioned NGLE, ALC, TEAL, flipped, blended and CDIO spaces. This is being reinforced by the message of student experience surveys³⁶ and especially the statistical results of student course survey data, where students are demanding more informal and social space on campus.³⁷

Furthermore, many university subject guidelines, which mandate a framework of one or two hours per week of lectures, one or two hours of tutorials and – in the case of laboratory practice subjects – two or three hours of lab attendance, are now slowly changing in their ratios. The class contact hours allocated to lectures are now in some instances being swapped for 24/7 tutor-assisted online learning programmes where students view podcast lectures online in their own time. When they attend class it is in a flipped classroom mode where workshops, collaboration, team-based and synchronous online learning and other interactive forms take place in a much more active and engaged practice.³⁸ For further notes on the flipped classroom model refer to page 41 and figures 2.26, 2.27 and 2.28

Fisher and Newton³⁹ reviewed a wide range of NGLE research papers leading up to 2012 and selected four sufficiently scholarly studies with significant positive findings around ALCs. Subsequently, Fisher and Ellis⁴⁰ reviewed additional NGLE research papers from 2012 to mid-2015 and selected five which were scholarly enough to be useful in this debate. The core idea of these evaluations is to provide irrefutable evidence to teachers that these NGLE do, in fact, produce better student learning outcomes. It is hoped that this proof will convince teachers and universities alike to move away from the passive lecture theatre model. Another key strategy is to produce NGLE teacher professional development programmes so that teachers have sufficient ‘scaffolding’ to perform in these spaces adequately.

This is work in progress, but the research will – due to the rapid onset of online learning – be growing at an equally fast rate.⁴¹ In terms of space utilisation, it is already irrefutable that the frequency and occupancy rates of ALCs far exceed those of lecture theatres, although it is acknowledged that the ALCs use more area per student station. But if learning outcomes are also included in these measures, and additional informal and social spaces are provided in slightly enlarged circulation spaces, then space efficiency can be – and is – fully optimised.