Beyond the beanbag? Towards new ways of thinking about learning spaces

This article looks critically at some of the assumptions in our current ideas about learning spaces, especially the arguments in favour of a shift from formal to informal learning spaces. It suggests that the formal/informal divide hides more than it reveals about the complex relationships between learning and the spaces in which it takes place; and that learning spaces in post-compulsory education remains an under-theorised and under-researched area. Instead we need to develop better conceptual frameworks and richer research methodologies so as to enable a more informed, constructive and creative debate. The article ends by exploring the implications of unpicking the ‘granularity’ of different scales and types of learning space, so as to outline some alternative concepts for analysing what already happens and for enabling creative improvements to the socio-spatial encounters, relationships and processes of teaching and learning in post-compulsory education

Between unsafe spaces and the comfort zone? Exploring the impact of learning environments on ‘doing’ learning

This paper explores how learning can be understood as a liminal space or transitional journey from one way of knowing to another; and where ‘doing’ learning is as much about being inculcated into the un-noticed rules and conventions of education itself as it is about developing understanding of the content of a subject discipline. By starting from Meyer and Land’s notion of threshold concepts and from ethnomethodological approaches which explore the ‘problematic accomplishment’ of everyday social and spatial practices, this paper considers how both new e-learning environments and more traditional face-to-face settings intersect with, and impact on, our conventional routines for producing and recognizing learning. Through a case study of a design project with interior architecture students, it explores what happened when attempts were made to inculcate a complex threshold concept - offering an alternative understanding of the relationship between disability and architecture to ‘standard’ conventions of accessibility – in both the ‘normal’ studio environment and online, via a blog. The paper concludes by suggesting we need to understand much more about what kinds of unspoken social and spatial practices frame the learning process in different disciplines in order to explore how we can create effective liminal spaces for both teachers and learners

The e-revolution and post-compulsory education: using e-business models to deliver quality education

The best practices of e-business are revolutionising not just technology itself but the whole process through which services are provided; and from which important lessons can be learnt by post-compulsory educational institutions. This book aims to move debates about ICT and higher education beyond a simple focus on e-learning by considering the provision of post-compulsory education as a whole. It considers what we mean by e-business, why e-business approaches are relevant to universities and colleges and the key issues this raises for post-secondary education

Occupying (dis)ordinary space

This paper starts by outlining some key work in ethnomethodology, which understands everyday, unnoticed social and spatial practices as “problematic accomplishments ”(Ryave and Schenkein:1974 65-274). Such practices involve a considerable amount of detailed ─ usually seen but un-noticed ─ work in order to maintain the commonplace world where people know what ‘anyone’ knows and does. We are interested to show how doing ‘nothing much’ is a socially achieved activity; how such ordinariness has consequence for those who specifically 'cannot be ordinary'; and in the implications for the everyday occupation(s) of built space. We do this by investigating occupation through the narratives and strategies of diverse disabled people using a tactic that Garfinkel calls breaching. He argues that the underlying practices in commonplace situations are best made visible through their disruption, through ‘making trouble’ (1967, 37-8). Disabled people are often not perceived as ‘anyone’ – not because of any particular impairment but because they do not fit the unspoken conventions of what constitutes doing ‘being ordinary’ (Sacks: 1984 413-429). Here we outline how a disabled-led perspective on occupation can reveal both the amount of work involved in negotiating physical space and how it goes unnoticed as ‘nothing much’. Finally, we look briefly at Milton Keynes Shopping Centre to explore what kinds of descriptions of buildings such an approach might offer. We suggest that rather than simply mirroring what ‘anyone’ knows or does, the design of a particular built space intersects in complex ways with occupation and doing being ordinary

Making Discursive Spaces: a collaboration between disabled and deaf artists and interior architecture students

This website explores some new ways of thinking about, and responding to, architecture and accessibility. It tries to capture some interesting ‘discursive spaces’ around disability and building design, based on a creative collaboration between deaf and disabled artists and interior architecture students from the School of Architecture and Design, University of Brighton during May 2007. The website can also be downloaded as a pdf, and works as an evaluation report for the (Arts Council SE funded) project

Learning creative practice by starting from difference

This paper describes the process and outcome of a two-year Arts Council funded collaboration between the Cass School of Art, Architecture and Design Foundation course and the DisOrdinary Architecture Project, and another year of research funds from The Cass School of Art, Architecture and Design, that centred on developing an agenda for creative practice from diversity. The process of research has demonstrated positive effects for students of valuing what they already bring to their studies; enabling difference to be a reference point for their own creative practices and supporting both discovery about, and connections to, the wider world. We began with exploring some of the opportunities that starting from difference offers as a creative force. The aim was to start from disability (and other identities) as often invisible, marginalised or ignored aspects of human difference, as a way of opening up the creative potential that valuing our multiple and diverse kinds of embodiment can bring. Evaluation through the three years highlighted that both Foundation students and tutors felt it was important to: 1. Build on what diversity brings to learning and the teaching as a central element of the culture of a school; 2. Acknowledge the value of diversity and difference; and 3. Be aware of its potential for, indeed it’s essential relationship to, creative practices. Feedback from students, and tutors, suggested that, while there was a shared underlying commitment to diversity and creativity, it could be better articulated and implemented through projects, pedagogic strategies and an embedding in the whole curriculum; and that these are underpinned by reflection and debate. The outcome of a three-point agenda is the starting point for further reflection on learning and teaching practices, proposals for possible future steps for a pedagogy of diversity and creative practices and research directions at Foundation level more generally

A study exploring learners' informal learning space behaviors, attitudes, and preferences

What makes a successful informal learning space is a topic in need of further research. The body of discourse on informal space design is drawn from learning theory, placemaking and architecture, with a need for understanding of the synergy between the three. Findings from a longitudinal, quantitative and qualitative study at Sheffield Hallam University, explore learners' behaviours, attitudes and preferences towards informal learning spaces in higher education, within and outside of the context of the academic library. The learning spaces study contributes to the discourse on informal learning spaces design by producing a typology of nine learning space preference attributes which address aspects of learning theory, placemaking and architecture. The typology can be used to evaluate existing spaces and inform redevelopment of informal learning spaces in higher education institutions. Implementing the typology will be subject to localised conditions, but at Sheffield Hallam University the key conclusions have included developing a portfolio of discrete, interrelated learning environments, offering spaces with a clear identity and encouraging students to translate their learning preferences into space selection

Playing with (in)difference? 30 years of gender and space

In her article “Playing with (in)difference? 30 years of gender and space” Jos Boys explores how feminist understandings of gender and space have been articulated and re-articulated over the last 30 years. This is, filtered through the specific context of her lived experience of London and the UK during this time. On the basis of experience of an earlier period she takes the opportunity to “talk back” to some contemporary feminist work, usually now called the third wave feminism. Speaking from a background in architectural education and community-based practice, she explores some different modes of conceptualising gender and space within feminism, so as to address the limitations of a linear generational model of feminism for practitioners working in the intersections between feminism and their own discipline. For teaching and learning in particular, such an understanding offers many opportunities to ‘re-view’ the attitudes and assumptions on the basis of which much built space is designed; and to make this more explicit and discursive students. Her article suggests a critical but supportive mode of enquiry for engaging with the history and the contemporary theory of feminism in relationship to space