"Radically Flexible" Classroom story - Learning Spaces Collaboratory

More documents

Recommendations

Info

who teach and study about American history, society, or culture. Almost weekly, additional archives come online, including such diverse collections as the U.S. Supreme Court Multimedia Database at Northwestern University, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and Exploring the French Revolution at George Mason University. 13 A second appealing feature of this new distributed cultural archive is its multimedia character. The teacher with a copy machine is limited to written texts and static (and often poorly copied) images. Students who have access to the web in their classrooms can analyze the hundreds of early motion pictures placed online by the Library of Congress, the speeches and oral histories available at the National Gallery of Recorded Sound assembled at Michigan State University, and with literally thousands of historical photographs. 14 Third, the digitization of documents allows students to examine them with supple electronic tools, conducting searches that facilitate and transform the inquiry process. For example, the American Memory Collection provides search engines that operate within and across collections: if one is researching sharecropping in the thousands of interview transcripts held by the Federal Writers’ Project archive, a search will quickly take the student to every mention of sharecropping in every transcript. But searches for key words such as “race” or “ethnicity” will also turn up interesting patterns and unexpected insights into the language and assumptions of the 19 th and early 20 th centuries. 15 These kinds of activities—searching, examining patterns, discovering connections among artifacts—are all germane to the authentic thinking processes of historians. Students are not just learning about history, they are learning to how to be historians. Although inquiry-based instruction can be implemented in a traditional setting, the typical history classroom, with rows of seats facing forward and a teacher at the front of the classroom, does not facilitate inquiry-based instruction. Inquiry-based instruction in history classrooms (as well as other disciplines) requires the use of multiple modes of presentation: lecture, whole class discussion, small group discussion, and individualized instruction. Moving heavy furniture (and the necessity of replacing it at the end of class) to accommodate small group work is time-consuming and interrupts the flow of the lesson. With a single computer access point at the front of the room, only the instructor can actually perform web searches. Student participation in web searches and analysis is limited to material provided by the teacher or to searches performed outside of class. The student-centered, active learning that is at the center of inquiry-based instruction is hindered by the “built pedagogy” of the traditional classroom. Therefore, the students and instructor of HIS 4330 decided to design a “radically flexible” 16 classroom that would maximize the inquiry-based method of learning, using multiple delivery systems, such as whiteboards, SmartBoards, video/film, sound recordings, and internet access (websites as well as UTube, Twitter, and blogs), to maximize student engagement and allow multiple interactions among students and between students and their instructor.
LEARNING SPACE DESIGN The Center for Teaching Excellence (CETL) provided the HIS 4330 design team with the basic floor plan for Project Next. The classroom that will house the learning design is located in the basement of the E.J. West Library of Texas Wesleyan University. The room is basically square, 31’ 6” wide and 29’6” deep, with a small cut-out (7’ by 4) in the NE corner. A door and an interior window are located on the NW side of the classroom (see floor plan). The classroom has been used as both a computer lab and a classroom and contains twenty PCs, a printer, one existing white board, a SmartBoard with overhead projector, and an instructor’s station. The flooring is beige vinyl tile, the walls are white wallboard, and all the lighting is overhead florescent. While the basic floor plan cannot be altered, the design team decided that the interior space would be completely redesigned to create a flexible learning space, in which the traditional classroom expands to include virtual space alongside physical space. Historically, Texas Wesleyan University (and other institutions at the college level) has designed classrooms around teaching and to maximize the number of students in a room. The presumption has been that good teaching results in learning—a presumption that focuses on the instructor. Our design team decided to shift the focus to the learner. Our research indicates that inquirybased learning is best achieved in a collaborative setting. 17 A space that harmonizes with learning theory, encourages inquiry-based instruction, and responds to the needs of Net-Gen students reflects several principles: Flexibility: A group of learners should be able to move from listening to one speaker (traditional lecture or demonstration) to working in groups (team or project-based activities) to working independently (reading, writing, or accessing print or electronic resources). While specialized spaces exist for each of these activities (lecture classrooms, computer labs, and library carels), it makes more sense to construct spaces capable of quick reconfiguration to support different kinds of activities, using moveable tables and chairs, for example. Sensory Stimulation: Antiseptic environments consisting of white rooms with bland tiled floors create a sense of boredom for their inhabitants. Human beings yearn for color, interesting room shapes or arrangements, and natural lighting. One study found that the majority of students, both male and female, constantly rearranged their living spaces to be more attractive. In evaluating a model learning space, they noted paint colors, carpeting, and lighting without prompting. 18 The students on this design team, likewise, mentioned color and comfortable seating at the beginning of the first design session. Technology Support: Millennial students expect seamless technological use. Their older teacher would also appreciate the
Page 1 and 2: A RADICALLY FLEXIBLE CLASSROOM PROP
Page 3: how one teaches. 9 Reaching today
Page 7 and 8: Selecting lightweight, wheeled chai
Page 9 and 10: Design based on learning principles
Page 11 and 12: We finish up by going back to the l
Page 13 and 14: students are supported by the learn
Page 15 and 16: 1 Diana G. Oblinger, ed., Educating

"Radically Flexible" Classroom story - Learning Spaces Collaboratory

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?