The PKAL Learning Space Collaboratory (LSC) is developing and implementing a workshop involving: "Planning spaces for learning for 21st century undergraduate learners: Translating what we know from learning about learning into policies and practices for shaping, building, and maintaining 21st century learning environments." This effort addresses the gap between research and practice in shaping learning environments. There currently are no easily accessible research-based resources, protocols, or tools through which the impact of space on learning can be explored in the process of planning spaces. The goals of this project are to develop and disseminate such resources and to engage a visible, sustainable community of practice that finds them immediately useful. The developed resources are being disseminated virtually via the LSC website, through regular LSC Teambox discussions, workshops, and other venues, as well as at events sponsored by collaborating partners and other national educational, scientific, and professional organizations. The project activities are offering an opportunity to triangulate the connections among: findings from current research (on learning, pedagogical practice, organizational change); current practice in the field (e.g., studio class-labs, interdisciplinary STEM labs, high-technology information commons, green buildings); and the work of those now responsible for shaping and sustaining 21st century learning environments. The project team is analyzing experiences, stories, and findings from the field through the lens of their particular expertise, seeking key lessons that would inform those ready to ground their planning efforts on learning.
BROADER SIGNIFICANCE The effort is building networks for exchanging ideas, critique practice, and identify important issues relative to planning spaces for learning. Through the LSC workshop, new questions are surfacing that will inform future practice in the field and influence future research. Beyond the LSC and its eight collaborating partners, ten national disciplinary, educational, and professional associations are vetting and promoting the use of project resources. The resources are being made accessible through the LSC website, advancing the continuing efforts of researchers and practitioners to understand why spaces matters to the quality and character of the undergraduate learning experience.
The Learning Spaces Collaboratory guide: Planning for Assessing 21st Century Spaces for 21st Century Learners was the primary outcome of the project. The LSC guide was designed by and for those involved with imagining and planning, designing and constructing, using and assessing learning spaces in the undergraduate setting. The guide outlines protocols for shaping and repurposing physical spaces for learners, reflecting experiences of planning teams at colleges and universities across the country. Institutions featured are public and private, large and small, representing different missions and contexts. Their stories offer a lens through which to examine how visions of 21st century learning and learners are shaping and transforming the 21st century environment for learning. Some of the built environments featured are new facilities that have become the center of a campus, bright and inviting, serving a broad community of learners anticipating the future. Others involved repurposing a corner in an existing building, creating a sandbox space for exploring innovative approaches for transforming what, how, and where 21st century students learn. The intellectual merit of the project is that it grounds the planning of built spaces in a shared understanding of how learning happens, connecting the dots between where students learn to attention to how and what students learn. No matter the context or scope of a particular institutional story, each builds from exploring the issue of how learning happens to addressing key questions: what do we want our learners to become, what experiences enable that becoming, and what spaces enable such experiences? This iterative sequence of questioning serves as a means to determine how investments in physical spaces make a difference in how students experience learning, leading to the fourth critical question: how do we know? Addressing the how do we know question presents another challenge for those responsible for planning particular spaces and/or facilities in the undergraduate setting. The broader impact of this project is that it establishes a framework for planning for assessing learning spaces. This framework has been developed and tested by stakeholders representing different institutional contexts and validated by experts within the community of assessment practitioners. As the process of planning spaces is driven by questions about becoming, so the process of assessment begins with identifying and asking the right questions and continues with using multiple means of assessment. This guide is intended to prompt greater attention to the how do we know question throughout the process of planning 21st century learning spaces for 21st century learners. Questions such as: By what measures can we assess the impact of learning spaces on the learning experience? What are the qualities and affordances of spaces for learning that reflect communal awareness of research-based evidence about how people learn? What are the qualities and affordances of spaces for learning that reflect communal awareness of societal and institutional goals for what 21st century students are to become? What difference will it make on our campus and to whom if we explore the question of how do we know in the process of planning new and repurposed spaces for learning? How does attention to assessing enrich the process of planning? There is now a deeper understanding within communities of academics and architects about the power of learner-centered planning. There is a substantive body evidence from research and from the field that learning is more robust when students are actively engaged in a social and supportive community; empowered to address problems that are meaningful personally and of import to the world beyond the campus. There is a growing body of evidence of what difference spaces make to the enabling of such learning experiences. The guide is designed to inform and broaden the work of those with responsibility for shaping 21st century learning environments for 21st century learners
