More on evaluation

The final JISC report “Study of effective evaluation models & practices for technology supported physical learning spaces” has now been published, can be accessed here. Undertaken by the LSRI at the University of Nottingham, the research found that existing evaluations were not, to put it politely, much to write home about:

Our initial investigations showed that although institutions were keen to advertise new or innovative learning spaces, the practice of evaluating such spaces was not made readily visible and was thus harder to identify or track. A key finding to emerge from the study was that if evaluations were undertaken they occurred as part of an internal institutional process, typically prompted as part of a student satisfaction survey, of which the outputs were not ordinarily deemed to be for external consumption. This has limited the extent to which knowledge sharing about learning spaces has been promoted across the whole educational community.

The study suggests that HE and FE need to think harder about how to evaluate physical learning spaces, so as to more clearly assess how they satisfy design intentions and teaching and learning needs. They also propose a conceptual Framework for Evaluating Learning Spaces (FELS), aiming to offer a common vocabulary for evaluation which different institutions could test. And they have started a Learning Spaces social networking site at spacesforlearning.ning.com.

Image from student project Minimum Conditions for Creativity LondonMet University

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Affordances

I have been doing some reading up on the concept of 'affordances' recently. Because my background is from architecture not technology, I have rather missed out on developments in human-computer interactions. An affordance is a quality of an object, or an environment, that allows an individual to perform an action. At its basic level, the aim is that the object and the ‘afforded’ action match. But in addition, the affordances of an object or space can refer to all the action possibilities that are feasible. Some authors, would limit this to the possibilities of which the individual performing the action is aware, or can easily discover. People like Donald Norman in his books, The Design of Everyday Things and The Design of Future Things have both popularised and developed this work.

What is powerful about these kinds of approaches, is that they engage at an intimate level of detail in the interactions between people, things and spaces. (Go to Dan Lockton's website Design with Intent to see some great examples.) The problem, though, is at the conceptual level: around the slippage as to whether affordances are inherent in an object or place - part of its 'nature' - or only exist through cultural conventions and processes of human interpretation.

Architecture has the same problem. Does form and space 'tell' us how to behave, or do we apply 'readings' based on our own personalities, preferences and cultures? Norman tries to separate out the realities of physical constraints/inherent properties which will affect affordances from cultural conventions, that is where there is nothing inherent in devices or design to afford a particular action, and we could try and do the same with Learning Spaces. But, for me, the underlying problem remains; this is a behavioural view where people and things relate through a kind of stimuli-response mechanism. Occupation is much more an interactive encounter than this, where we both change, and are changed by our activities. Space doesn't 'make' us do anything, but nor is it without effect.

Image from www.ingridhora.com

Space and sustainability

Last week the government unveiled their plans to reduce greenhouse admissions in the UK by 34%. Universities are already looking at how to reduce carbon and how to embed sustainability across what they do: in the curriculum, in estates planning and management and through related activities (for example, the University of Brighton recently won funding for as part of the edible campus network). This is not just altruism - the government has also said that from 2011, some of the funding that institutions receive will be linked to how well they reduce carbon emissions.

So, sustainability is becoming increasing interlocked with learning spaces. As the Guardian reported recently (Let's have a heated debate July 21 2009), this is not just about the physical issues of building and energy costs - although these are crucially important - but also about the next generation of students. The article quotes Iain Patton, executive director of Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges, saying " No matter how large a university carbon footprint is, it is nothing compared to the impact of its graduates when they leave and enter homes and workplaces. If we miss this, we really do miss the larger picture. When at university, we have the responsibility to ensure learners are exposed to knowledge and values which they can take on with them as informed, responsible citizens. Every aspect of our campuses, buildings, teaching and leadership must be oriented to achieve this."

Image: Agnes Denes, Wheatfield – A Confrontation, 1982. Two acres of wheat planted and harvested in Battery Park Landfill, downtown Manhattan. Commissioned by Public Art Fund, New York City. Photo: Agnes Denes - currently on show as part of Radical Nature exhibition, Barbican, London.

When augmenting reality becomes a cinch

With the potential of the latest iPhone to use applications which can tell you where you are and where others (or other things) are through GPS and a built in digital compass; and which can also be manipulated through touch on and movement of the device itself, we suddenly have a interactive, personal instrument which is both sensuously tactile and spatially oriented.

Already designers are exploring applications (apps) which exploit these qualities. Meanwhile, over in the US at the MIT MediaLab, there have been people working on augmented reality projects for years. As they say, "The Fluid Interfaces research group is radically rethinking the ways we interact with digital information and services. We design interfaces that are more intuitive and intelligent, and better integrated in our daily physical lives. We investigate ways to augment the everyday objects and spaces around us, making them responsive to our attention and actions. The resulting augmented environments offer opportunities for learning and interaction and ultimately for enriching our lives." And then, of course, there are those very smart people at the University of East London, SMARTlab.

I am a bit embarrassed at how excited this makes me - and all my friends know I am a gizmo addict - but this is a big one. Finally technology has a material feel and spatial/sensuous capabilities. The possibilities for art and design education are there just waiting to be explored...

Engage with Engage!

Had a fantastic time last week at the Engage International Summer School in Kilkenny (with a trip to Dublin thrown in), entitled Shifting Perspectives - positioning learning at the centre of the gallery. Engage is a membership organisation representing gallery, art and education professionals in the UK and worldwide. Gallery educators, curators and artists explored both where 'learning' sits within the wide range of institutional step-ups represented; and what learning means or should mean in a gallery/museums/collections/archives situation.

It was very stimulating for me to be working and talking with people who share many concerns but must also engage different audiences and have other sorts of cultural baggage and a very different history around, and context for, their various ideas, attitudes and practices. It throws a kind of useful questioning look at the assumptions we have in art and design in higher education. The amount of energy discussing the problems and sucesses of a variety of institutional frameworks was also insightful - something again that seems to me to be less explicitly considered in the university sector.

Image shows workshop underway in Kilkenny Castle photo: Jos Boys

The qualities of good learning spaces

At the UAL Making Spaces event, I ran a workshop asking the question I have been asking a lot of people: what makes a good learning space? Groups were asked first to discuss their own experiences of 'good' and 'bad' learning spaces and then to come up with a short list of key 'good' characteristics. Again, there was a lot of emphasis on the whole experience of learning, not just its physical spaces. For example - well-orchestrated/good choreography/managing expectations/explicit rules of the game. Or safe enough to take risks/confidence giving/non-precious/belonging. Or spirit of discovery/dynamic/valued. Others focused on basics - fit for purpose/environmental comfort/functional/inviting/organised (not left with previous activities 'mess'). And colour/variety (avoid ubiquity)/daylight/good acoustics/airflow/proper equipment/good catering.

Interestingly, a lot of the follow-up discussion was less about 'high-quality' designed facilites and more about how to improve the feel of existing spaces - about 'ownership' (who, how) and the power of students being able to appropriate space; about the importance of space feeling valued rather than neglected; about what types of spaces might sit between open access/flexible and dedicated/single use; and about how spaces might be 'refreshed' so they do not become too familiar, but retain the potential of engagement/unexpected outcomes.

A creative tension?

One of the comments at the end of UAL's Making Space conference concerned an 'elephant in the room' - the tensions between the desires and needs of art and design tutors/students and the realities of costs and scarce resources.

This tension reveals itself in many ways; in the tendency for estates managers and academics to distrust each other; in the perpetual gap between perceptions that there is never enough space (tutors) and that - at around 20- 25% - occupancy rates are too low (estates); in the problems of rooms being booked and then not used; and in arguments over dedicated spaces for courses, or one-studio space-per-student, or the amount and type of academic offices.

I joined a very interesting workshop run by Sian Kilner, who has been centrally involved in the new Space Management Group (SMG) guidance on planning affordable - and sustainable educational buildings. She has been exploring methods beyond simple space-per-student norms which aim instead to make more transparent and open for debate the intersecting effects of types of space, timetabling, activities and student numbers on costs.

We ended up having a discussion about problems of averages and peakloads. For me, educational courses are more like the bus system than a standard office - there are inherently peaks and troughs through the semester cycle, particularly in the art and design subjects. Another delegate said we have to think about studio space as a service, as something that needs to be offered even if it is not used all the time. (This is much better explained by Han herself on her blog http://evocativethings.blogspot.com/.) I came away thinking that if art and design tutors want to argue their case better, we have to look at methods for space planning which are more complex (that is, can better model the patterns through the academic cycle), but of course not so complex that they are ineffective predictors; and we have to be able to describe more precisely the space/time patterns of learning in art and design in HE to estates and facilities managers.

Image from installation in courtyard, Chelsea College of Art and Design, UAL. Millbank, London

Learning through appropriating space?

Was at the second University of the Arts London conference yesterday. Called Making Space a lot of the presentations and discussions this time around were about the creative potential of found or 'non-spaces' for art and design education. Rather than the "whatever we do, lets make it flexible" approach or the corporate/office feel of the bland building-with-an-atrium, many speakers hankered after the special pleasures of appropriating existing spaces and the learning potential in creatively occupying and/or transforming them. Here, the model was more the city (Sunand Prasad - "The city before us is a fantastic teacher; its functions call out for appropriate form and for us to appropriate it"; David Porter - "The studio is a city in miniature."). Ben Evans talked about 'pop-up' spaces and site-specific work, the creativity engendered by such temporary engagements.

There was a real feeling of a shift (maybe because of a strong architectural presence) towards trying to make learning spaces which can release the best energies of their occupants - something just focusing on functional quality can sometimes negate. This doesn't mean we can get away from the importance (particularly in art and design subjects) of spaces with certain technical specifications, only that the alternative should not be merely undifferentiated 'flexible' space.

Image of Catherine Yass project High Wire (2008) http://www.artangel.org.uk/projects/2008/high_wire

What is the difference between an office and an educational building?

Just back from a very brief trip to Belfast, where I was taken around the new(ish) Faculty of Art and Design building at the University of Ulster. Here is another project with a very clear underlying diagram (see previous comments on Telford College, Edinburgh). It is a series of open floor planes around two atria, like a huge number 8. At first glance it seems to be based on the layout and language of a shared coporate office space, with cafes and display space on the ground floor and then a variety of sizes of glazed-in an open 'boxes' above, providing offices, seminar and studio spaces.

But the difference lies in how the spaces are connected. There are many varieties of relationship, mostly emphasising openness. So staff offices are glazed, to overlook one of the voids down to the returns desk of the library. Others have no windows, others have few walls. Many walls finish just above head level, and some overlooked rooms have no ceilings.

In some spaces, these varations seem to work together, particularly the top floor spaces of the under-graduate architecture school (at least at this moment when it is being used for exhibition.)

But overall, it is as if there has been no real engagement in the specific characteristics of education, particularly art and design education. There is no acknowledgement of the complexities of sharing, ownership, belonging, security and privacy at different scales/different locations/times for both staff and students. The IMAGE of openness is lovely, the realities much more less successful. Sound travels everywhere, uncontrolled. If stuff is left out its messiness is on show to the world (and easy to steal), but there is no way to hide it away/store it appropriately.

Education is not an office, nor merely a more flexibly and artistically arranged version of one.

A nice little gizmo

Sometimes it is really nice to come across interactive web resources that really 'get' the distinctiveness of art and design. So I recommend that you try out Sketchbook developed by Julia Gaimster at the University of the Arts.

What is creativity, again?

Did a workshop at another event exploring creativity and innovation last week, at the Creativity Centre (part of the CETLD-C University of Sussex and Brighton collaboration) . Organised by the University of Brighton's Centre for Learning and Teaching (CLT) it brought together for sharing and debate some projects around creativity going at the university.

The day was introduced through a talk by Ray Land who, together with Eric Meyer, has written on 'threshold concepts' and 'troublesome knowledge' as a way of grasping and interrogating the complex processes through which students 'get' the key ideas and practices of their subject discipline - and the 'liminality' of learning spaces this implies.

He talked a lot about the relationships between learning and creativity, both of which he articulated as liminal spaces. However - sometimes - creativity seemed to be being defined within the popular commonsense as something outside of everyday learning, as a letting go/anything is possible/do what you want kind of activity. He often linked it to chaos and to transgressive acts "where normal rules are abandoned".

For me, this is a misunderstanding of creativity - as something separate to and more uncontrollable than, 'normal' learning. As we tried to show in the ADM-HEA YouTube video (mentioned in my last post which was appropriated (!) pretty directly from Fischli and Weiss's Der Lauf Der Dinge/The Ways Things Go) - the best creativity integrates the asking of unexpected questions with rigorous processes of experimentation and testing. It is not 'outside' or a different kind of learning, but central to how all learning takes place.

But I agree with Ray Land absolutely that such processes are anxiety-inducing and complex - liminal spaces - which need to be both protective ('holding environments' in Winnicott's phrase) and enable risk-taking. The work he and Eric Meyer (and others) have done in this field - particularly Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding - remains a very valuable resource in helping us re-think learning spaces.

Play is a serious business

Attended the HEA-ADM Vital Space conference recently - well not so much a conference, more a creative discursive space (!)which intersected the live event with an ongoing virtual blog... and culminated in a set of 60 sec. YouTube videos. Stephen Heppell of UltraLab (which mainly works in the schools sector) kicked things off with a YouTube talk, proposing key concepts for better learning spaces. David Clews, Director of the HEA-ADM responded in kind; and then at the event itself, groups were allocated a concept to explore.

My group had playful. What was interesting is that all the groups immediately got involved in the complexity and tensions of their concepts, wanting to think harder about what was going on beyond the cliches. Our group all felt there was already a big problem with the concept of playful just meaning brightly coloured beanbags, being 'touch-feely' and having 'fun'. We talked a lot about the serious business of play as taking creative risks and all that that implied. How can students be supported in this? What kinds of spaces do they need? How can it be developed within contexts where resources are short and this kind of play/risk-taking difficult to asssess/challenging to conventional methods?

So our group tried to express this notion of playfulness - click here to see our video.

A hot topic!

Learning Spaces in Higher Education seems an increasingly hot topic, with lots of events going on. The Reinvention Centre (Oxford Brookes/Warwick) has their next conference at the beginning of April - their Fourth Social Learning Space Symposium: Learning Outside of the Square , and Plymouth University are holding Boundary Changes: Re-defining Learning Spaces at the end of April. Sheffield Hallam and Sheffield Universities have just started up a Learning Spaces Special Interest Group (SIG). In London, the University of the Arts is planning a follow up to their successful 'Space to Think' event last year with another conference this summer. And the ADM-HEA Annual Forum is also on Space. (They have also been running a student essay writing competition in Learning Spaces.)

So why does it still feel as if this area remains under-theorised or developed. Where are the well-argued and susbstantive publications rather than just downloadable case pdfs? Where is the academic research rather than the consultancy-driven case studies? interestingly the book I am writing as part of this CETLD work is being published under architecture - the education editors said there was not enough demand in the educational field.......not sure that the people organising/attending all these events would agree....

Image of playground pods by Jos Boys, Acklam Burghley School, Camden, London

What are the Sticking Places?

As part of the second Learning Spaces seminar, we talked about whether the concept of 'sticking places' - or to use the proper term, Threshold Concepts - is a useful idea for art and design education. This is the proposal that particular concepts are key to the development of mastery in a discipline but are often problematic because they are counter-intuitive and difficult to grasp. For Meyer and Land (2006. p22) learning involves the occupation of a liminal space.... a kind of teenagehood, where they fluctuate backwards and forwards between different kinds of understanding.

So - what are the things that art and design students have 'to get'; and how can that process be supported? I suggested that, from my experience the first thing an architectural student has to 'get' is how to look differently; not just noticing landmark buildings or making commonsense divisions between what is ugly and what is beautiful, but viewing every single space/object with a critical and creative eye, for its potential to inform their own creative work.

As the groups talked, they were most interested in what students themselves bring to the process - in who defines when you 'get it' and in the broader processes of becoming/being a learner and becoming/being a practitioner, rather than, say, the problems of learning specific concepts. For one group a key set of sticking places was about the identity of becoming a student - the desire to engage in learning - understanding/acquiring a subject culture/ethos - which is bound up in teaching and learning approaches and methods. Another was the process of developing critical awareness - seeing multiple perspectives - positioning self/gaining ownership - communicating ownership/position using (and possible subverting) the conventions of the discipline. Both groups came to a similar conclusion - that the key threshold concept is being able to articulate their subject well and therefore pass it on (beyond the boundaries of their own discipline).

Rather than a series of individual 'moments' then, sticking places seemed to be more like a journey over a very uneven terrain, with learners (and tutors) bringing different kinds of more or less suitable equipment.

What does 'matter' about space?

The participants in the CETLD Does Space Matter? workshop - mentioned below - were first asked to describe (on a postcard) one 'good' and one 'bad' learning space they had personally experienced, either as a tutor or a student. Then groups compared notes and drew/mapped out key terminology and characteristics.

Not suprisingly, some of the most immediate issues were around basic issues of comfort; rooms that were too hot or cold, too noisy, "unwelcoming", the wrong size, shape or badly planned for the activities that went on in them.

But the more we talked, the more it felt like these issues were just first steps; things that should, after all, 'work' in any space. Whilst some participants emphasised the importance of flexibility and informality, others were also interested in trying to tease out the issues for, and value of, many different types of learning spaces. This involved thinking abut the usefulness of more complex and potentially contradictory terms - beyond simple oppositions (formal/informal, rigid/flexible, single-directional/multi-directional) - such as territory, authority, situation and safety. As one group wrote - "there is no such thing as a good or bad space, it's all contingent."

Evaluating Learning Spaces

One of the key problems - of course - about making better learning spaces, is how to evaluate 'success'. As someone said at our first CETLD Learning Spaces seminar at the University of Brighton last week (Does Space Matter?) a lot of developments seem to be about making spaces 'nicer'; brighter colours, better lighting, more informality, better integrated technologies. But students liking a space is not the same as it enhancing their learning (although it might overlap).

The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), who are reponsible for developing UK unniversity and college technology services, have recently funded a study by LSRI at the University of Nottingham to build a compendium of evaluation techniques for learning spaces. This follows on from the JISC Learner Experiences research which is currently offering workshops across the country about evaluation methods (see sidebar). Called JELS, the new work aims to bring together and review the range of methods currently used to investigate the effectiveness of learning spaces: visit their website to find out more and to participate.

Note: The Does Space Matter seminar was the first of 3: for details of the others (and to register) go to the CETLD website.

I want social networking +

For people interested in developing new technologies for learning, the enormous growth in online social networking (through Web 2.0 applications like Facebook and MySpace) seems to offer a way forward for student-centred, collaborative approaches. Enthusiasts for new technologies are also hopeful that it will change the way we teach and learn – shifting relationships between tutor and students, and instigating informal and social rather than formal and hierarchical structures.

The big question here is, does social networking translate to education, and if so, how?

At the same time, with virtual and immersive environments like Second Life also becoming popular there is another thread developing which looks to computer gaming for a model; with its task setting, competitive sharing and increasingly difficult levels, is this more like education? As part of the reLIVE Second Life conference (see previous post) I helped a University of Brighton researcher called Lars Wieneke with participant feedback. Lars is developing web interfaces based on task sharing/gameplay for learning about cultural heritage and his audience was asked to ‘perform’ a painting in Second Life. What was most interesting was that, first, everyone found it difficult NOT to engage with the painting by wanting information about it; and that, second, as they performed its characters and their relationships instead, they all wanted to go and see the actual work. So an action in Second Life was leading to a motivation to do something in the real world. That seemed like a positive and creative outcome, even if neither Lars nor I had been expecting it. So that is another thought which may lead somewhere, but not quite sure where...

image of  the painting workshop participants were asked to 'perform' in character - Velazquez's Las Meninas 1656 

And then there is Second Life..

Went to the reLIVE conference at the Open University last week, and got my first proper introduction to Second Life, in the company of people who spend as much time there as the real world. For anyone interested in 'space' - and our everyday social and spatial interactions - Second Life is an extraordinary place. It is huge, an enormous world of islands, events and networks. It seems to be a complex mixture which both replicates real world social relationships/spaces and enables surreal, parallel and re-invented ones. So the basic landscapes conform to gravity and people tend to make their avatars face each other at an 'appropriate' social distance when text-talking. But then these figures might have bushy tails, or be dressed in extraordinary costumes, or (if you building skills are good enough) are in the shape of something else like crows or fish. It is quite strange to have a conversation with a fish rotating around your stomach.

With nearly 50 million people globally who are SL members, it feels like we should be understanding what is going on. For people interested in learning in Second Life, the key explorations currently seem to be around simulations (disaster scenarios, historical enactments) and 3D social networking/informal learning. But I think what stunned me the most was the huge amount of creativity going into making artefacts, spaces and developing social (including sexual) connections. From choosing, finding or designing clothes; to creating buildings; to generating events or objects to sell; to playing a game based on having a child and it growing up; personal, social and commercial creatvity is central. And I don't even know how to begin mapping or analysing what is going on.

image from Lars Wieneke workshop entitled 'cultural tinkering', reLIVE conference workshop. OU, 20th Nov 2008

Space costs!

One of the most interesting things about the Explore it! toolkit launch at the University of Dundee (see below) was how many estates and facilities managers were there, keen on finding out how to generate more innovative policies and approaches to learning spaces development and design. Estates people and academics can find it all to easy to stereotype each other: teachers are perceived as unwilling to shift from their existing practices (single offices, course or department 'owned' spaces, last minute planning and and 'just-in-time' room-booking) whilst estates managers are seen as obsessed with space utilisation figures and cost-saving, un-interested in the demands of teaching and learning.

The truth is, space costs - and with increasing pressure on university finances, we all need to be collaborating on how to creatively think/procure/design/implement/manage space better. This is about more than better briefing (although of course that helps too). We also need to develop better understandings of the relationships between material space and the teaching and learning practices which take place in it. It is only when we know more about what actually happens that we can decide priorities and explore what might change. And I should mention that, to date, it has been the estates and facilities management team at the university who have been talking about this to me ( and about the potential to be more adventurous), not academics....

Another day, another building...

Another day, another building visit - this time to Telford College in Edinburgh. This design (the subject of many case studies) is interesting because it offers a very clear 'diagram' of how educational spaces could change as information and communication technologies (ICT) become ubiquitous to learning. 

Telford College (by HOK architects) is formed around a large atrium which combines a cafe with informal learning spaces and wireless connection to the university portal. This high, light and top-lit space is surrounded by several floors of classrooms all linked by spines of 'learning streets' - extra wide double-height corridors. These colour-coded learning streets contain rows of open access computers, together with alcoves at various intervals (and used for various things) and are supported by a help-desk in each spine.

Staff accommodation is also different to most universities and colleges - everyone put together into one 3,000 sqm open plan office, with 85% hot-desking supported by a variety of informal and formal social and group spaces.

Interestingly, I combined this visit with going to the launch of the Explore It toolkit at the University of Dundee. Designed by DEGW, together with the University of Strathclyde, the toolkit is crucially about helping  those participating in new buildings or adaptations to imagine the possibilities; through a series of diagrammatic and inter-changeable building plan drawings. 

The Explore It toolkit focusses on academic workplaces, suggesting a series of different core arrangements (called Studies, Quarters, Clusters, Hubs and Clubs) with different implications for staff activities and relationships.  The bottom line is, of course, how to reduce the amount of space most universities allocate to academics and the perceived under-occupation of this space. From this website, you can also download the background research paper entitled "The changing academic workplace" by Andrew Harrison and Antonia Cairns from DEGW - all part of the Effective Spaces for Working in Higher and Further Education project funded by the Scottish  Funding Council.

A space for crossing boundaries

Recently visited Whitespace at the University of Abertay, Dundee. This converted building was opened in 2007, and is intended as a hub for activities bringing together Computer Arts students, PhD students, lecturers, business clients, broadcasters and artists. As well as educational sessions, the space contains in-house graphics and digital media teams providing professional services,  new business start-up units and state-of-the-art digital media suites - all of which offer the  potential to bring students, academics, practitioners and businesses together in many innovative, flexible and creative ways.  The space is zoned into different but overlapping and (mainly) open areas, each with their own spatial and aesthetic characteristics. 

Of course, this only works because the underlying roles, relationships and working practices of the various participants have also been re-orchestrated..... with very interesting implications for curriculum design and working/learning patterns. For me it really expressed what can happen when positive intersections between the campus and its community and business contexts - what the virtual world calls distributed creativity - are embedded into physical space.  

Extending in every direction!

If the notion of learning spaces is already extending in every direction in this blog - beyond the campus, across virtual and physical spaces, linking learning with civic engagement - then here is yet another additional area; universities as sites of urban and cultural regeneration. The RIBA and CABE together run a project called Building Futures one element of which is called 'future scenarios in higher education' looking at the relationship between university campus development and increasing student numbers with the wider environments in which this is taking place. The site includes a position paper, written by Eeva Burglund called "Universities and their cities - some observations for a framing of debate.".  All these developments suggest that it is no longer possible to assume that either the university or 'learning' are simple or bounded spaces; they cannot be isolated from wider contexts and processes.

The value of metaphor?

Went to visit the Public Gallery recently in West Bromwich, both to see the fully interactive exhibition areas and the - as yet undesigned - new Learning Space. The interior is an extraordinary layering of open pods linked via a ramp (you go to the top and then circulate down), interweaved with a Ben Kelly designed set of tree structures with giant computer screen leaves. Visitors to the gallery accumulate personalised data as they journey through the spaces (on an interactive tag they carry), finishing up with the opportunity to translate their collected images into a self-created souvenir. It is not all up and running yet, so still too early to say what kind of impact this environment is going to make on its participants. In the meantime the gallery is exploring what kind of learning space would support and develop its activities.

Zoe Partington-Sollinger, Head of Learning and Tom Hamilton (from InQbate) have together been developing ideas through a workshop, now being discussed with the architect and others. At this stage metaphors seem key - ideas around 'camping' currently to the fore. Other participatory processes, such as the work Woods Bagot did with the University of Melbourne earlier this year, also seem to find metaphors useful - there ideas about cafes, sandpits and gardens. What is nice about these notions is they can help to break away from functional or behaviourist analyses of space; but what is problematic is how they actually translate into spaces that support creative learning.

A forest of educational concepts!

Seem to keep having discussions recently with art and design practitioners and teachers about the 'problem' of educational language. There is a perceived surfeit of pedagogic terms which fail to offer -it seems - much purchase with their interests in, and experiences of, teaching art and design subjects. How important or useful is it to know about constructivist models, experiental learning, resource-based learning, problem-based learning, learning styles, deep and surface learning, threshold concepts or action learning sets?

Will return to this issue. Meanwhile, came across Jame Atherton's website(s) which offers a very wide ranging and informative introduction into the whole subject.

Spaces in-between the Conversational Framework

Laurillard's Conversational Framework has rightly had a strong impact on our understanding of how teaching and learning 'works'. But, increasingly, research about learning is exploring the spaces in-between this framework. Researchers are beginning to examine the emotional/non-verbal aspects of learning as a conversational process; what we each bring to it in terms of hopes, desires, beliefs and confidence, and how this may affect students differently, depending on their backgrounds and attitudes. What if knowledge is also contested, as well as understood/mastered by the student through guidance from the tutor? Or contested between tutors?

Ideas about threshold concepts (or sticking places) also potentially challenge the smoothness of the Laurillard conversational flow; what if we actually learn in jumps and starts, if there is something we just dont 'get' however well it is explained? Does this change the shape of the framework or merely alters how it operates as a process of conversations through time? And of course - what is the impact of the conceptual, physical and virtual spaces on the conversation? The Conversational Framework is a key starting point, but it raises as many questions as it answers.