EDUCAUSE | Contributed by Organizations or Campuses; Articles, Papers, and Reports; and Learning Space Design

More Than Coffee and Wireless

ckeller — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 17:03:27 -0500

"For several years now, the talk about libraries as student-oriented buildings has focused on amenities to enhance the visitor’s experience. Students want their coffee and comfy couches on which to chat with their friends during study breaks. Students want to study in groups. And students want to use their laptops, so wireless is key. "

Designing the University of the Future

drupal — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 12:10:56 -0500

These authors identify transforming trends in society that are affecting the mission of universities, analyze the impact of those trends on the institutional and spatial structure of universities, and then summarize the factors that planners should be paying attention to in the future design of their institutions.

Cats in the Classroom: Online Learning in Hybrid Space

drupal — Fri, 09 Sep 2005 16:35:55 -0500

Students and professors create a shared on–campus classroom environment through individual and collaborative contributions. Similar contributions go into the design of an online classroom. Online instructors build the learning environment to create a shared learning experience, and designers of course management software reinforce this consistency. Examining the online classroom as "hybrid space" — comprising physical and online space — reveals a more complex reality than a seamless learning environment. Students and instructors share a learning experience, but they also occupy local environments that influence their learning and indirectly influence the experience of everyone in the online class.

Unplugged U

drupal — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 11:24:47 -0500

Dozens of schools are deploying wireless networks and turning students loose. As corporations move tentatively toward going airborne and consumer wireless service startups wink in and out of existence, students at many colleges are eagerly embracing life untethered, and creating an environment ripe for explosive innovation.

Flexible Space & Built Pedagogy: Emerging IT Embodiments

drupal — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 13:46:33 -0500

This paper analyzes the convergence of information technology infrastructures and traditional educational spaces and proposes flexible criteria for material-virtual, hybrid learning environments.

New Learning Spaces: Smart Learners, Not Smart Classrooms

drupal — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 13:51:57 -0500

The goal of improving teaching and learning is critical, in fact essential, for every student and therefore for every college and university. But turning our classrooms into spaces resembling Hollywood studios is just throwing great quantities of money at this issue instead of addressing the really difficult problems that need to be solved to improve learning.

Revisiting the Classroom

drupal — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 13:57:08 -0500

For all of the interest in enhancing classrooms with IT equipment, the hardest problem today is that the stock of rooms has to cover both traditional and newer teaching methods. Designs and equipment choices that allow the new uses without compromising the old ones are the best approach and are becoming more possible.

Implementing an Innovation Cluster in Educational Settings In Order to Develop Constructivist-Based Learning Environments

drupal — Fri, 24 Jun 2005 11:04:44 -0500

This forum initiated with a description of the implementation of a constructivist-based reform effort in k-12 classrooms in the US. The reform effort was an online collaboration among four teachers in 4th and 5th grades classrooms to implement a design problem-based unit meant to develop higher-order thinking responses in students. The unit design principles are correlated to current research in the cognitive sciences and the teachers' efforts at implementing reform are correlated to current research in theories of innovation. The initial description also briefly characterizes aspects of the implementation process that led to productive or less productive reform results.

Libraries Designed for Learning

drupal — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 11:35:56 -0500

To what extent have recent library design projects been driven by an understanding of how students learn and how faculty teach? To find out, Yale Librarian Emeritus Scott Bennett conducted an extensive study of the motivations and planning methods for library renovation and construction projects undertaken between 1992 and 2001. His study entailed a Web-based survey of more than 380 institutions, and phone interviews with 31 library directors and chief academic officers. He concludes that while most of the projects are serving users well, they have rarely been informed by a systematic assessment of how students learn and faculty teach. The author suggests that planning based on such an assessment could equip the library to serve an even more vital function as a space for teaching and learning.

Library as Place: Rethinking Roles, Rethinking Space

drupal — Mon, 23 May 2005 17:16:05 -0500

What is the role of a library when users can obtain information from any location? And what does this role change mean for the creation and design of library space? Six authors—an architect, four librarians, and a professor of art history and classics—explore these questions in Library as Place: Rethinking Roles, Rethinking Space. In their essays, the authors challenge us to think about new potential for the place we call the library and underscore the growing importance of the library as a place for teaching, learning, and research in the digital age.