User
The USER logo is designed as a metaphor for how learners—the primary USERS—will be moving in and through the spaces being planned. For more than two decades, pedagogical pioneers in many disciplinary fields have experimented with and assessed classroom experiences to determine what kind of learning experiences support students—all students—in achieving ambitious learning goals, that students—all students meet higher goals for student success.
In the context of the emerging LSC Research Initiative, we invite your attention to:
- Where is evidence that guided-inquiry—the learning cycle of exploration, concept invention, and application—works?
- Where is evidence that active-learning classrooms invite faculty to demand more from students…and to support students in achieving ambitious learning goals?
- Where is evidence that learning that begins with a problem, in spaces designed to combine lecture, lab, and recitation in a unified experience works?
- Where is evidence that students learn better when teachers can combine separate activities like lecture, lab, and recitation into a single, unified learning experience to meet higher standards for student success?
Process
The fulcrum of the LSC Roundtables is indeed the interactions between academics and architects, open-ended opportunities to explore and arrive at a common language, a common vision, a common understanding of the students (the USERS) of the spaces under consideration. The process of the Roundtables is a process that could be adapted at the earliest stages of thinking about spaces.
From the Roundtable at the University of Washington:
- We think a good question for the planning team to ask each other would be: How do you describe or define yourself as a whole person?
- Are you recommending a specific question relating to inclusivity that those responsible for shaping learning spaces have in their tool box of questions to ask at the beginning stage of planning?
- Not really. I think you walk into planning recognizing the opportunity to design for inclusivity rather than designing to address a “diversity” problem. We receive feedback from students on planning teams when they feel they are representing the “x” minority community of students rather than all students. It takes time to talk together without being afraid of pronouns, without people feeling anger and incriminated by language others are using. It takes time to become aware of personal. biases.
This takes time, especially when the campus does not have a culture of conversations about diversity.