Open Forum May 2, 2006

This open meeting covered two topics:

  • We heard from the Denison team who participated in a national conference on learning spaces and technology.
  • We described the process through which classrooms are scheduled and listened to ideas to improve access to effective learning spaces.

Technology & Learning Spaces conference – Rhodes College – Feb. 2006
See http://www.pkal.org/activities/2006Rhodes.cfm

The Denison team reports:

  • A brainstorming session with designers and architects
  • The information common was a hot topic
  • Technology and pedagogy of the future are unpredictable, depends a lot on what is developed and what student trends are
  • Suggested more atrium spaces, more common spaces
  • Major theme: mobility, flexibility
    • Sometimes faculty have an aversion to this because once they get everything they way they want it, everything gets moved around
  • Change can be incremental (small $) or dramatic (big $)
  • Need for broader institutional concepts to drive what you're doing—planning
    • Academic plan and curriculum should drive your space projects, not the other way around
    • Do we have such a plan here at Denison?
  • Libraries traditionally thought of as "quiet" places, but the new thing is to have a variety of spaces available (including both quiet space and spaces where students can work in groups and can be "noisy")
  • We shouldn't focus on issues of equity so much as having different possibilities, different types of spaces as needed to meet curricular goals
  • Should we be more focused on structure or on pedagogical methods?
    • Activities and academic needs should drive space needs
  • Communication- what type of space is available? Faculty should know what we have and what we could have, so they have a better idea of what options are available in their curricular planning

How We Schedule Our Learning Spaces

  • Three major themes in our earlier discussion:
    • Flexibility, communication, and essential need for a plan
  • Many times faculty ask for e-classrooms and might only use it one day a week or at the end of the semester for presentations
  • Do departments ever talk to one another? Everybody wants to teach at the same time
  • Do we actually need more e-classrooms? If so, where?
  • What is the proper e-classroom size? With the 3/2 course load, e-classrooms that were designed to hold 18-22 students are now needing to accommodate 26
  • Faculty don't want to leave their floor, or their building, and most want to teach between 10 and 2
  • There is a difference between wanting to "own" small seminar spaces versus larger classrooms (and e-classrooms). The seminar spaces are often used for small, upper level courses, and departments want that space to reflect their discipline somehow, not just be a "generic" space
  • Maybe our (as-yet-designed) "plan" needs multiple models because not every idea will work with every department
  • Sciences and fine arts have perhaps less of a problem with scheduling (and being able to work cooperate) because they know what space(s) they have to work with and schedule
    • sciences often have their own building that they "own"
    • fine arts has a conglomeration of buildings that "belong" to them
    • social science and humanities don't really have that, they could be scattered anywhere on campus just as easily as anywhere else
  • What if all departments in a building could get together and discuss scheduling and what type of classroom teaching spaces they might want to use/share for their particular building?

The entire meeting was videotaped and so the Library archives will have a copy for viewing.