Take-Away/Take-Home Questions & Strategies from the LSC National Colloquium

Take-Away/Take-Home Questions & Strategies from the LSC National Colloquium

What one question—reflecting colloquium discussions and the current status of planning we’re now involved in—should we bring back to our colleagues for their attention and action?

This question, addressed by table groups during the final session of the 2019 LSC National Colloquium, reflected the DNA of the Learning Spaces Collaboratory.  Aware of the power of questions as drivers for change, the LSC began in 2010 with a retreat engaging an intentionally diverse group of academics with expertise and passion for imagining and realizing spaces that work. They identified four essential, timeless questions around which to shape the LSC agenda into the future:

Reports from the 2019 LSC Colloquium signal how much the planning community has learned since 2010. Consider how asking a simple question—what do we want our learners to become?—has morphed into a kaleidoscope of questions about students, all of which must be addressed if the planning ‘problem’ is to be solved. And, consider new kinds of questions that have emerged—how risk-adverse is our institutional culture? and what do we want our institution to become?—that are now essential questions to drive the process of planning.