Faculty of Education - Research Publications
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ItemIntroduction to Part III: Measurement(Springer Nature Singapore, 2020-01-01)Abstract ‘Measurement’ of the impact of learning environments has occurred for quite a long time, but its role in driving and guiding reforms in ILE design and use has not been as effective. This is due to a lack of common terminologies, too wide a scope of what constitutes ‘learning environments’ and too often the use of very poor methods. This section presents a number of evaluation initiatives, playing a part in exploring new approaches to ‘good’ evaluation.
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ItemIntroduction to Part IV: Teacher Practices(Springer Nature Singapore, 2020-01-01)Abstract This final section of Transitions focuses on arguably the most important element of ’successful’ ILEs—the teacher. Within educational research alone, and when looking at a hundred years or more of research into quality schooling, most arguments attract a counter-perspective. Interestingly, on one factor virtually everyone agrees; the teacher has the greatest positive impact on the quality of student learning. For this reason, we use the preceding sections to lead us into discussions about how teachers occupy and use the educational space.
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ItemWhere to Now? Fourteen Characteristics of Teachers’ Transition into Innovative Learning Environments(Springer Nature Singapore, 2020-01-01)Abstract This chapter places the preceding papers into a wider context. As part of the Innovative Learning Environment and Teacher Change (ILETC) project, seven Transitions symposia were held in five cities across Australasia, Europe and North America during 2017, 2018 and 2019. Each aimed at investigating how teachers adapt to innovative learning environments. The resulting accumulation of approximately 150 papers by graduate researchers and research groups, of which this book’s chapters are a sample, constituted a reasonable representation of international thinking on this topic. When added to three years of ILETC case studies, surveys, systematic literature reviews and teacher workshops, the project team was able to identify consistent patterns in teachers’ spatial transition actions. This chapter places the material of this book within that larger picture, specifically in terms of one project output—the development of a Spatial Transition Pathway. The Pathway emerged from these data and can be seen as an output of the material sampled in previous chapters. Certainly, the considerable work teachers had been doing to re-conceptualise their pedagogies for new spaces (done both intentionally, and at times, without realising) deserved to be mapped as a resource for others undertaking this journey. This chapter makes the case that while each teacher or school’s journey from traditional to ‘innovative’ spaces is unique, there exists some common issues that most seem to face at some time, in some way. It provides a description of fourteen ‘grand themes’ that appear commonly through the data and describes how these can be organised in a way that provides temporal and theme-based strategies and tools, developed by fellow educators to assist in this transition. This final chapter leads the reader to consider ‘where to now’? It celebrates the fact that teachers have enormous capacity to work out how to utilise innovative learning environments well and provides a framework for evidence-based actions into the future.
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ItemAligning pedagogy and space: An Australian evidence-based approach(INDIRE, 2018)Australian schools have adopted innovate learning environments on an unprecedented scale, with over AUS$16B (approximately Euro11B) invested in these spaces since 2010. The Learning Environments Applied Research Network (LEaRN), based at the University of Melbourne, has matched this growth with commensurate nationally funded design and pedagogy research. Their evidence-based approach has sought to maximise the potential of these developments, from both a design and pedagogy perspective. This presentation will briefly overview characteristics of these Australian spaces, and discuss how departments of education are planning advancements in their design for the next decade of growth. It will overview a decade of research conducted by LEaRN into innovative learning environments, including strategies for advanced design, explorations of the measures needed to evaluate the effectiveness of these spaces, and will present a report on its latest large project, an international study aimed at improving teaching in these cutting edge spaces.
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ItemInnovative learning spaces: Catalysts/agents for change, or ‘just another fad’?(Brill - Sense, 2018-07-26)Various announcements about the death of the traditional classroom are proving premature; first because research is not providing conclusive evidence that ‘non-traditional’ classroom spaces have advantages that warrant such pronouncements; and second, because traditional classrooms are needed in any school that seeks true spatial flexibility. The focus of mature debate on this topic is shifting from advocating radical departures from the norm, towards the provision of a range of spaces that accommodates the huge array of preferred learning and teaching styles that occur in schools. This focus on teacher and student practices within a variety of classroom typographies, means the traditional classroom will retain a valuable role in the education of our students. This is not to say what we presently call innovative learning environments (ILEs) won’t eventually prove to be a significant agent of change. They most probably shall. However, this is likely to be in terms of their capacity to add to teachers’ pedagogic repertoire (thus improved affective and effective outcomes for students), and not as a stand alone catalyst for change as some ‘21st century learning’ advocates might predict. This chapter will draw on historical precedents and emerging research in learning environments evaluation to argue what we are witnessing is not a revolution, but simply another chapter in a sustained, multi-faceted and slow-moving reconceptualization of the role of space in education. This slow change accounts for a myriad of variables far more complex that the current futuristic digital native discourse, and relies on sustainable changes in practice based on sound evaluation practices. As such, this broader-focused debate, if undertaken wisely, is likely to see sustained rather than fad-like change concerning the design of our schools.
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ItemNew Generation Learning Environments: How Can We Find Out If What Works Is Working?(Sense, 2016)Are they leading to the sorts of improved experiences and learning outcomes for students they promise? This book describes strategies for assessing what is actually working.
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ItemEvaluating the Change in Space in a Technology-Enabled Primary Years Setting(Sense Publishers, 2016)There has been considerable attention in the literature postulating the potential effects of contemporary, technology-enabled new generation learning spaces (NGLS) on both teaching and learning (Brooks, 2011, 2012). This has, in part, been driven by the pervasive and transformative potentiall of ubiquitous access to and use of digital technology in the classroom (Chan et al., 2006). Increased access to mobile technology in recent years has freed students from the restrictive nature of shared access in tradiitional computer laboratories (Blackmore, Bateman, O'Mara, & Loughlin, 2011). Students now have personal 'anywhere, anytime' access to a boundless library of highly indexed information (Beichner, 2014), which in turn challenges the highly sequential style of instruction that has allowed teachers to preserve their historically authoritative role. Personal access to technology can support more adaptive and connected learning experiences. These experiences are created by connecting teachers and students within multimodalities of teaching and },earning that may have not been possible before (Bocconi, Karnpylis, & Punie, 2012; Hall-van den Elsen & Palaskas, 2014; Swan, van'T Hooft, Kratcoski, & Schenk,er, 2007). Multimodalities afford teachers the ability to orchestrate adaptive learning opportunities using a range of physical, text and visual tools, whilst connecting students with each other. A key element is the connectivity between teachers-students and students-students is established through the creaition of technology-enabled NGLS. The technology-enabled spaces have ubiquitous access to digital technology through one-to-one digital devices connected through wireless infrastructure. The affordances of a NGLS environment has the potential to revolutionize how, where and with whom students learn (Mouza & Lavigne, 2013; Thomas & Brown, 2011). It has the potential to sup,port contemporary pedagogical practices that facilitate highly personalised models of student learning (Bocconi et al., 2012; Magee, 2009; Zandvliet & Fraser, 2004). This personalised model includes learning outside the primacy of the traditional classroom forum (Mouza & Lavigne, 2013). Together these elements intertwine to create a model of teaching and learning that can be radically different to prevailing school cultures (Mouza & Lavigne, 2013).
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ItemThe Role of Evaluation as an Educational Space Planning Tool(Sense Publishers, 2016)When an educational facility is to be built or refurbished, ideally a team of educators, designers and governing educational bodies’ representatives work together to ensure the facility reflects the educational institution’s beliefs, the needs of the teaching staff, and the desired learning outcomes of its students. The ultimate aim should be to ensure the new facility supports the learners in the most effective way based on latest developments in educational theory, and research into ‘what works’ in spatial design. In reality, however, few educational space designs enjoy this level of scrutiny, most being designed and built with little input from educators. Under some circumstances an educational space planner (ESP) is employed as an intermediary between the designers, the builders, policy stakeholders, the school administration, the teaching teams, and the students. The role of the ESP is to ensure the design accommodates the school’s educational vision and performs pedagogically as well as operationally. In this regard, the ESP occupies a highly advantageous position, owning equal insight into the design and educational aspirations of a build and being uniquely positioned to evaluate the degree to which the project is successful. Interestingly, little research has evaluated the impact of the ESP on the actual outcome of an educational project of this sort. This chapter explores the evaluative potential of the educational space planner.
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ItemEmerging methods for the evaluation of physical learning environments(Sense Publishers, 2016)The field of post-occupancy evaluation (POE) has provided direction on how evidence can be gathered about the performance of educational facilities for over 40 years (Cooper, 2001). However, such work has generally overlooked the evaluation of learning spaces for pedagogical effectiveness, i.e. the suitability of the physical environment in supporting desired teaching and learning practices, activities and behaviours. This chapter calls for, and introduces, new methods of learning environment evaluation that attempt to make explicit the connections between pedagogy and space. It also outlines a suggested framework for the further development of such methods. The research is currently being conducted at the University of Melbourne in connection with the Evaluating 21st Century Learning Environments (E21LE) ARC Linkage project. Findings so far have indicated that a return to the origins of post-occupancy evaluation in the field of environmental psychology is required to support the development of evaluation methods that take into account both the physical and social components of the environment. Feedback is needed on just how effective specific ‘units of the environment’ (Barker, 1968) are as pedagogical settings.
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ItemOccupying Curriculum as Space(Sense Publishers, 2016)Learning environment research is gaining previously unachieved sophistication as it develops beyond ‘post occupancy evaluation’ towards socio-cultural examinations of how students and teachers occupy and utilise space. This chapter argues that knowledge gained though previous research can be ‘mined’ for such spatial implications. The overlap between gender studies and curriculum is one such field. Curriculum remains an effective tool for implementing macro-policies of government and articulating wider socio-cultural agendas in schools. However, for all this success there exists a very limited understanding of its lived impact on the student – that is, how curriculum is actually inhabited by an individual. A doctoral study was conducted in the late 1990s to address this paucity of knowledge. When published, the study advanced thinking on this topic, but now is open to further examination. The purpose of this chapter is not to repeat what was found, rather to re-interpret its findings through a spatial lens. Time is a great teacher; academic activity by the PhDs author in the intervening eleven years, particularly in the area of learning environments research, has allowed a different perspective on how curriculum is actually occupied and manipulated by its inhabitants.