From 2002-2007, The Getty Foundation granted more than $12M to 86 campuses for campus heritage preservation planning projects. One of the Getty's aims was for the campuses to involve students in those planning projects. The Society for College and University Planning (SCUP) is working with the Getty Foundation to publish and analyze lessons learned from the reports collected about the campus research. More about that work can be learned at www.CampusHeritage.org

My colleague Claire Turcotte wrote one of more than 20 articles in a special, full-color issue of Planning for Higher Education, forthcoming in April. In it, she brings out recurring themes and highlights in the reports.

One such theme is the "Use of Students." It's not a large section, and I've reproduced it below. Please note that this is prepublication, therefore changes in the text may occur before publication:

Along with experts, consultants, and stakeholders, students were involved at various levels during the preservation planning studies at many of the grant recipient institutions. Involvement in the Campus Heritage Initiative grant work must have been an inspiring hands-on experience for these students.

The Steering Committee at the University of California, Davis hired two student interns to work directly with the consulting firm during the research and inventory phase of the project. These interns began the project with the collec- tion of primary and secondary materials regarding campus history and existing conditions.

Savannah College of Art and Design engaged the astonishing number of 90 graduate and undergraduate historic preservation students in activities including internships, specific coursework, lectures, workshops, architectural critiques, and related research projects (primarily building research). Students were also used as site liaisons and research assistants at each of the seven buildings under structural analysis. For the students, this was undoubtedly an outstanding historic preservation experience.

University of California, Santa Cruz used students either as interns to the Campus Physical Planning and Construction Department or as volunteers. Assignments included developing campus cultural resources records, taking photographs and creating illustrations of building components, developing a GIS map of archaeological sites, and developing a historic site database. This modern campus, located in a prehistoric Native American region, includes the historic Cowell Ranch and is of archeological interest.

At Lake Forest College outside of Chicago, a cultural landscape course was taught, and students were involved in an architectural and historical survey of campus buildings followed by building assessment survey.

Miami University developed the idea of a “memory map” as part of the development of its heritage plan. Alumni, students, and the community contributed information to the map by describing meaningful and significant university spaces, buildings, traditions, events, and associations.

1. When paid, students are able to devote the time required to become local experts.

Example: Our model was to establish a series of subcommittees, all of which reported to an executive committee co-chaired by a faculty member and a student. A fellowship provided summer support for the student shepherd, and she first helped to establish the framework for planning, including delineating the sub-committees, some of which she chaired. This structure served us well for the entire project. She also volunteered to write a white paper exploring the potential for sustainable design. When our project began the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED program was very new, so she carefully researched the LEED certification procedure. Subsequently, she effectively presented her proposal--first to a faculty forum and then to the administration. The principles she proposed became part of the Request for Proposals to which architecture firms eventually responded, so no other individual is as responsible as she for establishing the direction for what became a LEED Gold building.

A year later, the next pair of students served on the 8 person architect selection committee, and with his support, enjoyed the same voting privileges as the university President. Their vote was not just flattery, because their daily responsibilities had included additional pre-design programming and helping to create briefing materials about each of the potential firms. Their knowledge was as deep and as current as the best informed members of the committee, and their contributions were sophisticated and effective.

2. In some instances students are able to take a broader perspective than faculty or other stakeholders.
Example: One of the original student shepherds inherited the job of chairing the animal room planning committee. Shortly thereafter our campus planner notified us that the space allocated to the shared animal room needed to be cut to about one quarter of the size the faculty had requested. Negotiating such a dramatic cut was a big job to assign to a college senior, but it was her committee and it became her responsibility. In retrospect, she was the ideal person for the job. A double major in Biology and Psychology, she knew the department chairs and representatives, knew what an animal room required and wasn’t about to be impressed by inter-departmental space rivalries. The necessary compromises were achieved in just one meeting.

3. Student participation broadens the scope of the programming data.
Students are consumers and collaborators who have a unique knowledge of how spaces are actually used. After the architects were hired a committee made up of two student representatives from each science department, and chaired by the paid student shepherd, took photographs and created posters documenting the spaces that worked and didn’t work in the old science buildings. The architects reported that these responses were remarkably helpful as they became familiar with the project.

4. When appropriate, student involvement provides opportunities for academic integration and unique learning opportunities.
Over the course of about half a decade, student collaborators and I coauthored three presentations at professional conferences, and the students made dozens of presentations to groups as varied as the alumni association, student government and our Board of Trustees.

For our project, students participated in the planning process in three ways. First, we had several committees that met throughout the duration of the planning phase. Students participated as members of the architect selection committee, the green team, and the building committee. Second, faculty members held informal conversations with students to discuss ideas that were being considered. Third, our architects interviewed students to determine the kinds of spaces that they considered important and would find useful in a new facility. One of the challenges is that the typical duration of planning for a building is longer than the time that a particular student will be on campus, so it is important to have a plan to facilitate turnover so that new students can participate.

I share this syllabus and presentation link with the PKAL LSC community and look forward to hearing about other examples of formal classes through which students become engaged learners, within the context of a very, very supportive community.

What Do They Know? Planning and Design as Pedagogy
A Presentation from the 2009 PKAL Learning Spaces Workshop

The syllabus introduction reads:

Fall 2008: Anthropology 250A / Art 250A
Observing and Designing the Social Use of Space: Campbell Hall, a Case Study
Instructors: Nell Ruby and Rosemary Lévy Zumwalt

What makes a place a learning space? What makes a place a GOOD learning space? Is it the light? The sound quality? The color of the walls? Is it the design and comfort of the furniture? Is it the equipment available? Is it the people in the space? Is it the way in which the people interact or the way in which the space facilitates the interactions? How can you, as an individual and as a member of a learning group, influence the learning environment? These are some of the ideas we will explore this semester.

In seeking answers to these kinds of questions, we will be observing how people use space and make it their own, how they change it to suit their needs throughout the day and night and the semester. As a response to our findings, we will be designing elements that will act to change aspects of learning spaces. We will learn how light, line and color infuse space with energy or tranquility, how these elements create a welcoming-in or a stay-away message. Campbell Hall will be our focal point, the experiential palette for our design of the social use of learning spaces. Our laboratory for observing the social use of space will be all around us on the campus of Agnes Scott College.
What makes a place a learning space? What makes a place a GOOD learning space? Is it the light? The sound quality? The color of the walls? Is it the design and comfort of the furniture? Is it the equipment available? Is it the people in the space? Is it the way in which the people interact or the way in which the space facilitates the interactions? How can you, as an individual and as a member of a learning group, influence the learning environment? These are some of the ideas we will explore this semester.

In seeking answers to these kinds of questions, we will be observing how people use space and make it their own, how they change it to suit their needs throughout the day and night and the semester. As a response to our findings, we will be designing elements that will act to change aspects of learning spaces. We will learn how light, line and color infuse space with energy or tranquility, how these elements create a welcoming-in or a stay-away message. Campbell Hall will be our focal point, the experiential palette for our design of the social use of learning spaces. Our laboratory for observing the social use of space will be all around us on the campus of Agnes Scott College.

See full syllabus in Resources: The Planning Process

At Texas Wesleyan University (Fort Worth, TX), Methods of Teaching History (HIS 4330) is a course designed to prepare college history majors for the special challenges they will face as history teachers in secondary school. As part of this course, the students observed in secondary schools (middle and high schools) for 25 hours during the semester. One of the topics that arose in class discussions of their observations was the arrangement of classroom space to facilitate learning. I challenged my class to design an ideal space for history instruction and enter the Project Next competition.

Although many Texas Wesleyan students come from earlier generational cohorts, the majority of our students fit the age group known as The Millennials or Net-Generation students (born 1982 or after). This age-group will furnish an ever-growing number of college students both at Wesleyan and at other universities. All of the student members of this design team are members of the Millennial generation (while the instructor is a Baby Boomer).

The most commonly identified characteristic of the Millennials is their unconscious integration of technology into their lives. Most members of this cohort group are so connected that they consider technology as simply a tool for getting things done. But technology is not the only attribute by which this generation is defined. The Net-Gen student prefers social learning, has a preference for group activity, and favors learning by doing rather than by listening. Discovery, exploration, experimentation, criticism, and analysis are the learning styles that suit the Millennial generation well.

Texas Wesleyan's faculty have been offered (and have attended in large numbers) presentations on student-centered learning. Yet our faculty still struggle to reach these Net-Gen students in classrooms that are dominated by one type of design: teacher-focused, one-way facing and presentational, with seating arranged in either a U shape or in straight rows. Even when technology has been added—interactive whiteboards mounted on the wall behind the teacher with ceiling-mounted projectors cabling to a wired computer—these have rarely altered the dynamics of the design. Diana Oblinger has identified what she calls the “built pedagogy” or the ability of space to define how one teaches. Reaching today’s students, who prefer active, participatory, experiential learning, requires that we reconceptualize our learning spaces to facilitate the learning styles of the Net-Gen student.

Active, social, and experiential learning are all facets of a new direction in history instruction known as inquiry-based learning (also sometimes called project-based learning). Inquiry-based learning facilitates student acquisition of domain-specific skills such as evaluating, corroborating, and synthesizing multiple and conflicting historical evidence. Inquiry-based instruction is a student-centered and teacher-guided instructional approach that engages students in investigating problems of the past. Students acquire and analyze information, develop and support propositions, provide solutions, and design products that demonstrate their thinking and make their learning visible.

A space that harmonizes with learning theory, encourages inquiry-based instruction, and responds to the needs of Net-Gen students reflects several principles:

• Flexibility: A group of learners should be able to move from listening to one speaker (traditional lecture or demonstration) to working in groups (team or project-based activities) to working independently (reading, writing, or accessing print or electronic resources). While specialized spaces exist for each of these activities (lecture classrooms, computer labs, and library carels), it makes more sense to construct spaces capable of quick reconfiguration to support different kinds of activities, using moveable tables and chairs, for example.
• Sensory Stimulation: Antiseptic environments consisting of white rooms with bland tiled floors create a sense of boredom for their inhabitants. Human beings yearn for color, interesting room shapes or arrangements, and natural lighting. One study found that the majority of students, both male and female, constantly rearranged their living spaces to be more attractive. In evaluating a model learning space, they noted paint colors, carpeting, and lighting without prompting. The students on this design team, likewise, mentioned color and comfortable seating at the beginning of the first design session.
• Technology Support: Millennial students expect seamless technological use. Their older teacher would also appreciate the same capability. Our design team noted the need for a wireless environment, the capacity to network with other devices and display vehicles, and access to power. Rather than the cumbersome, fixed ceiling-mounted projector systems, learning spaces of the future will need more flexible capabilities.
• Decenteredness: Following the principles of knowledge constructivism, spaces should convey co-learning and co-construction of knowledge. Within the classroom, that means avoiding the message that the room has a front or “privileged” space. Flexible furniture arrangements decenter the room from teacher to student activity and stress collaboration.

Our classroom design for Project Next provides a “radically flexible” space for twenty-four students and the instructor that includes:
1. Flooring: medium blue carpet tiles (for their sound-deadening quality
and ability to be replaced if stained).
2. Walls: painted soft yellow (a welcoming color).
3. Furniture:
a. Twenty-four quarter-round tables on wheels, capable of being moved together in groups of four to form six table areas. Each quarter-round table is 2 ½ feet across, giving a large table space with a diameter of 5 feet.

The presence of reconfigurable furniture and the absence of the traditional “front of the room” allow active learning approaches that focus on student interactions and involvement.

b. 25 rolling office chairs (for students and the instructor), upholstered in red.

Selecting lightweight, wheeled chairs that permit easy reconfiguration of the room’s seating encourage debate, discussion, and teamwork—essential elements of inquiry-based learning. Chairs whose height is adjustable with cushioned seats and armrests also provide more flexibility for different body types.

c. Ten portable white boards (also on wheels) that can be used to divide the room space and provide workspace for student projects.
Ideally, the white boards should be 5’ long, 4’ wide, and 5’ high (measured from the floor).

With no centralized, formal “front” to the classroom, these whiteboards provide each work group with its own visual focal point and access to a mobile writing surface. Some of the whiteboards we have researched have whiteboard space on both sides; some have cork boards on one side and whiteboard on the other (we believe this style would be most desirable, since it provides space for students to display work).

d. 25 Dell Latitude laptops contained in a mobile technology cart. Wireless Internet connection is essential for this classroom.

Laptops and other mobile devices have great potential to enhance and transform instruction. Today’s students use their devices in class to take notes, access materials and applications, and find relevant information. When all students in a classroom can access networked tools simultaneously, many collaborative learning opportunities emerge. In a traditional classroom, many students use their networked devices to engage in activities unrelated to coursework. We believe that when a classroom is no longer a place where information is delivered to passive students, but an interactive, collaborative environment where knowledge is actively created, those interactive devices can be an important part of the learning process.

e. A mobile SmartBoard with a wireless Instructor Station.

Given that the instructor will be moving around the classroom in most instructional configurations, a fixed station would be counterproductive. Visual display is no longer confined to one wall but distributed around the classroom. Moreover, students will also need to be able to utilize and control the room’s technology, as much or more than the instructor.

Ideally, the room would contain several mobile SmartBoards that students could use in small groups. We recognize that the expense of providing this kind of connectivity may be prohibitive. However, we believe that the SmartBoard provided in this classroom should be mobile and wireless, which would allow it to be used by students as well as the instructor. (Please see the picture and specs attached to this proposal.) An alternative to multiple mobile SmartBoards might be data projectors located at several spots around the classroom. The whiteboards can be obtained with surfaces that are suitable for projection. With wireless access to student laptops, student work could be projected onto the whiteboards and facilitate group knowledge construction

f. A 96 inch sofa with ottoman and two armless upholstered chairs—all three covered in a dark blue twill fabric, chosen for durability and stain resistance.

Provision of this “living room” furniture is intended to convey to the students using the classroom that this is a different kind of space, in which a different kind of learning will take place. This furniture also appeals to the Millennials’ need for social spaces where informal learning occurs. Together with the moveable tables and chairs, this furniture will allow students and the instructor to personalize the learning space, making it comfortable in a variety of arrangements and for a variety of people.

g. Large cork boards (ideally, floor to ceiling and at least 10’ wide) on the east and south walls.

These walls provide more space for display of student work and for large posters illustrating historical places/events and maps. The intent is to provide more visual interest in the room.

. h. A classroom response system (“clickers”) to allow the instructor to gather feedback and to stimulate class discussion.

i. A color printer and copier/scanner.

j. An overhead lighting system that allows for dimming and that simulates daylight as much as possible.

With almost every item in the space on wheels, from the tables and chairs to the SmartBoard and instructor control station, the room can be quickly and easily reconfigured. This will allow the space to serve many different functions and teaching styles. We have attached several room configurations to this proposal, but many such arrangements are possible. The “radical flexibility” of this plan allow both instructors and students to take ownership of this space and shape it to their particular requirements.

CONCLUSION:
We have thoroughly enjoyed the process of creating our version of this "radically flexible" classroom. We believe that learning spaces convey an image of a university’s philosophy of teaching and learning. We recognize that space can either enable, or inhibit, different styles of teaching and learning. The needs of the Net-Gen students coincide with the new directions of learning theory that indicate that competence is achieved in active, exploratory, and social settings. We believe that the classroom we have designed for this project complements the Millennials by being as adaptable and flexible as the students who occupy it.