Ambrose, G. Alex (2019) ” Building Flexible Learning Spaces Utilizing Faculty & Student-Driven Design.” Educause Annual Conference, Chicago, IL

Ambrose, G. Alex (2019) ” Building Flexible Learning Spaces Utilizing Faculty & Student-Driven Design.” Educause Annual Conference, Chicago, IL

Click here for the full slide deck

Click here to enter a virtual tour of a Notre Dame typical and prototype classroom.

Abstract: 

The session will open with an introduction and problem identification within the context of higher education. Many IT, facilities management, and registrar units work in silos in designing, building, allocating, managing, and renovating classrooms. Additionally, the problem of missing key stakeholders’ voices (students & faculty) in the learning space design process will be defined. Next, a tour of our active learning classrooms will be provided.

An interactive presentation supported by a digital handout and backchannel will provide a history and evolution of the University of Notre Dame’s learning space research & design methodology. This approach captures faculty and student voices to create data-driven design decisions. Some of the questions we will be able to answer with our framework and tools are: How do you get faculty and student voices into the learning space design process? What do four semesters of learning space evaluation surveys from over a thousand students and dozens of faculty from multiple disciplines tell us? What can we learn from designing and testing medium Active Learning Classroom prototypes to guide future classroom design and budgets? Where do we get the most “bang for the buck” with regard to furniture, technology, or space? What are student/faculty learning space perceptions, recommendations, and impacts? Which data-driven design decisions were made to continually improve our process? What bottom-up partnerships, processes, and guidelines did we develop that were aligned to top-down strategic visions and goals?

Finally, the session will conclude with a Q&A discussion and a return to the digital handout with a review of the backchannel best questions and resource sharing.

Participants will:

1. understand how faculty and student-driven data design can evolve their campus’ learning space design process
2. engage in a learning space design methodology experience
3. create a customized learning space design plan to take to their own campus

Related Posts:

IFALC Poster Presentation on our Learning Space Report Card

Steelcase Active Learning Classroom Grant Report

Photo from the Workshop in the Steelcase Interactive Room

Quick Link here: https://tinyurl.com/2019educauseND

Click here to download and zoom into the infographic poster presentation as a pdf

Click here to enter a virtual tour of a Notre Dame typical and prototype classroom.

Citation:

Ambrose, G. Alex, Burchett, Brian (Aug 2019) “Building Flexible Learning Spaces Utilizing Faculty & Student Driven Design.” International Forum on Active Learning Classrooms (IFALC), University of Minnesota.

Title:

Building Flexible Learning Spaces Utilizing Faculty & Student Driven Design

Abstract:

Many IT, facilities management, and registrar units work in silos in designing, building, allocating, managing, and renovating classrooms. Additionally, the problem of missing key stakeholders’ voices (students & faculty) in the learning space design process will be defined.

How do you get faculty and student voices into the learning space design process? Learn how faculty and student-driven data design can evolve a campus’ learning space design process. We will provide a history and evolution of the University of Notre Dame’s learning space research & design methodology, an approach which captures faculty and student voices to create data-driven design decisions. Some of the questions we will be able to answer with our framework and tools are: How do you get faculty and student voices into the learning space design process? What do four semesters of learning space evaluation surveys from over a thousand students and dozens of faculty from multiple disciplines tell us? What can we learn from designing and testing small, medium, and large Active Learning Classroom prototypes to guide future classroom design and budgets? Where do we get the most “bang for the buck” with regard to furniture, technology, or space? What are student/faculty learning space perceptions, recommendations, and impacts? Which data-driven design decisions were made to continually improve our process? What bottom-up partnerships, processes, and guidelines did we develop that were aligned to top-down strategic visions and goals?

Click here to enter a virtual tour of a Notre Dame typical and prototype classroom. You will notice the 9 key design features that shifted from the typical to the prototype classroom:
-Doubling the density occupancy data from 17.7 to 32.33 square foot per student.
-Replacing rolling single tablet armchairs with varied and flexible tables (1-5 person) and chairs.
-Switching and increasing from a single projector to 4 LCD screens.
-Switching and increasing from 1 chalkboard to 3 marker boards and 30 huddle boards.
-Reconfiguring the room from 1 fixed teaching zone to 4 flexible learning zones.
-Relocating the instructor station from tethered in the front of the room to the rear.
-Reorienting the room from a clear front of the room to no clear front of the room.
-Improving from no BYOD compatibility to floor plugs and power extension cord towers and video cables to connect to screens.

Related Posts:
Steelcase Active Learning Classroom Grant Report
Learning Space Design Experiment Ignite Talk

Ambrose, G. Alex (2019) “Building Flexible Learning Spaces Utilizing Faculty & Student Driven Design.” Steelcase Active Learning Center Grant Report

ABSTRACT
In the summer of 2017, the University of Notre Dame was awarded a $65K furniture grant from Steelcase Educations’s Active Learning Center. Notre Dame’s Office of Facilities Design and Operations contributed $50k in classroom renovation funding and the Office of Information Technologies $25K in technology funding to renovate Debartolo Hall 232 into a state-of-the-art prototype flexible classroom to maximize interactive learning. Over the next two years the team at Notre Dame developed and refined a five-step methodology to evaluate the design impact of our prototype learning space to answer five guiding research questions:

1) How do we assess and visualize the comparison of a prototype learning space to a typical classroom?

2) How were specific learning space design features perceived by faculty and students?

3) Which learning space design dimensions (furniture, technology, or environment) do faculty and students value the most?

4) What are the impacts of the learning space on faculty and students?

5) What were the major challenges and lessons learned from this learning space innovation grant?

The two biggest conclusions from our learning space report card and evaluation survey instrument were a) faculty and students in the prototype gave more than a letter grade higher (C–>B+) than their counterparts in the typical classroom b) seven out of the 9 (77%) of our design feature changes to the prototype classroom had a positive and improved effect on faculty and students.

“From Learning-Centered Design & Research to Evaluating the Impact of Emerging Learning Spaces,” given on 6/19/19 at Steelcase NY, NY.

To watch the 7 min youtube video ignite recording see:

Click here to enter a virtual tour of a Notre Dame typical and prototype classroom. You will notice the 9 key design features that shifted from the typical to the prototype classroom:
-Doubling the density occupancy data from 17.7 to 32.33 square foot per student.
-Replacing rolling single tablet arm chairs with varied and flexible tables (1-5 person) and chairs.
-Switching and increasing from a single projector to 4 LCD screens.
-Switching and increasing from 1 chalkboard to 3 marker boards and 30 huddle boards.
-Reconfiguring the room from 1 fixed teaching zone to 4 flexible learning zones.
-Relocating the instructor station from tethered in the front of the room to the rear.
-Reorienting the room from a clear front of the room to no clear front of the room.
-Improving from no BYOD compatibility to floor plugs and power extension cord towers and video cables to connect to screens.