Hello, and welcome to Teaching, a free weekly newsletter from The Chronicle of Higher Education. Today, Dan describes how active-learning classrooms can encourage professors to think more purposefully about how they teach. Then, Beckie lets you know about a couple of upcoming conferences and shares how a fellow newsletter reader’s institution helps students make more-informed choices about their courses. We also direct your attention to some useful reading you might have missed.
Space in Learning
Over the past year or two, we’ve been hearing a fair amount about the importance of physical space in teaching and learning, and how the configuration of a classroom can encourage or discourage intellectual experimentation and exploration.
For example, traditional lecture halls, with their bolted-down chairs, encourage students to sit and listen rather than work in groups or engage in discussions with one another. Institutions like the Universities of Maryland and Arizona and Bryant University have built or renovated ambitious spaces that foster active learning. These spaces, which often have movable furniture and whiteboards and other interactive technology, are designed to encourage professors to change how they teach and students to participate more frequently during class.
But getting faculty members to take full advantage of these spaces can be a challenge. That’s where Laura S. Lucas comes in. She has an unusual job title — learning-spaces manager — at St. Edward’s University, a Catholic institution in Austin, Tex., with about 5,000 students.
Lucas’s job combines elements of instructional design, technology, interior design, and pedagogy. But the job isn’t really about technology or space usage, per se. “A big part of what I’m doing,” she says, “is helping faculty evolve their teaching practices.” So when she starts working with professors she’ll ask them what they would do if they could help their students learn in any way possible. Then she works with her colleagues to incorporate aspects of their answers into their teaching. It doesn’t mean changing everything they do in class. “It means supporting a broad range of pedagogical approaches,” she says. It also means encouraging them to experiment.
Active-learning classrooms can generate a lot of buzz. After all, they look cool in promotional brochures, and presidents can raise money for them. So it’s easy to dismiss them as just another teaching-and-learning fad. But that doesn’t mean that these classrooms can’t be put to useful ends. As Lucas explained, when instructors start using these classrooms, it’s an opportunity for them to think more purposefully about what and how they teach.
For example, St. Edward’s has about five or six spaces that are specially configured for active learning; some have wheeled furniture to encourage small-group collaboration, and others have video-conferencing equipment. Lucas described how one of these spaces wasn’t being fully used, so she assigned several faculty members’ courses to it. Some professors started rethinking how they approached their courses. Others made more modest changes by, say, using the U-shaped seating configuration that had been left for them by a previous occupant. But even small changes can be significant because they can start a professor on a longer journey of reframing how she connects with students. And the larger message for faculty, as Lucas said, is “They still have control.”
While Lucas’s specific job title might be unusual, universities are increasingly investing in positions like instructional designers that support teaching and learning. I have a question for the faculty members out there: How often do you seek out the pedagogical expertise of people outside your department? For what sorts of things do you look for help? And, for the instructional designers who read this newsletter, what’s something you wish professors would ask you? If you email me at dan.berrett@chronicle.com I might use your reply in a future newsletter.
