Problem-driven learning spaces at Georgia Institute of Technology: More from the LSC Guide for Planning and Assessing Learning Spaces

We continue the series of postings from the emerging LSC Guide with the Georgia Tech story.

A key lesson to be learned from the experience of planning spaces for the Biomedical Engineering program at Georgia Tech is that spaces are a means to an end, a physical embodiment of a strategy designed to serve specific goals about what learners are to become and about what learning experiences make that becoming happen.

What is it that biomedical engineers do? If we understood the process of learning as the process of becoming a practitioner in the discipline, what would our BME spaces be like? Questions such as these were threaded through the story of the evolution of problem-driven learning spaces at Georgia Tech.
 
It is intriguing to note the similarity of these questions—asked in the context of a highly specialized STEM discipline—to those asked in the process of redesigning spaces for teaching and learning writing at Utah State University. (See upcoming webinar.)
 

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At the University of Michigan, a design lab has been created that offers a different approach to nurturing problem solvers in the SmartSurfaces course team-taught by professors from Art & Design, Materials Science and Engineering and Architecture. One of the professors, John Marshall, described their program and space at the recent NCIIA annual conference in Washington. In the form of a PechaKucha presentation, Marshall described the goals of the course: to give UM students an integrative, hands-on learning experience where cross-disciplinary team design, build, program, and test interactive surfaces.

Marshall is a member of the Sloan/LSC working group.

In his Sloan essay, Marshall states that "Education that is localized, in-person and hands-on may be the future of bricks and mortar universities. Future students that physically go to college rather than merely log in to one will develop knowledge directly from experience—knowledge that is difficult to transfer in writing or speech alone. Such experiential modes include studio-, workshop- or laboratory-based learning, places that favor making and doing rather than merely talking and listening, as happen in classrooms and lecture halls."

Free Radicals: A Sloan/LSC Essay

Presentation from NCIIA Open 2013

SmartSurfaces: a Multidisciplinary, Hands-on, Think-tank

Upcoming Events

LSC Workshop at University of Massachusetts Amherst

Amherst, Massachusetts
May 4, 2013

This workshop is an opportunity to join with colleagues in the region to gain deeper insights about how to plan learning spaces for today’s undergraduate learners and how to understand how the spaces work. 
 
This is a unique opportunity. There will be plenary sessions to learn from academic colleagues from the region who have experience in planning and assessing learning spaces, as well as from architects and other design professionals with expertise in this process. There will be breakout sessions that address particular dimensions/aspects of the planning. This will include attention what needs to be considered when planning/assessing:
  • General purpose, active learning classrooms intending to serve research-based pedagogies and curricular approaches.
  • Spaces for formal/informal learning, in particular technology-rich information commons, etc.
  • A physical environment that enhances learning 24/7.
 
The central theme throughout the workshop is how to do more with less, how to respond to the challenge of shaping and reshaping spaces that serve institutional vision, enable faculty to teach well and students to learn well, that are cost-effective over the long-term, and that are a physical embodiment of what your campus is. These are challenges that all of us are addressing. Sharing lessons learned and connecting with colleagues in the region will be of mutual benefit to all workshop participants.