Picture this!

Getting close to my deadline for handing the manuscript of Towards Creative Learning Spaces: re-thinking the architecture of post-compulsory education into Routledge, the publishers, which is exciting and terrifying at the same time!

One of the interesting but difficult things has been thinking about illustrations. There are already many well-known examples of good practice out there - particularly represented by shifts towards informal learning and more hybrid research spaces respectively - across the UK, US and Australia. But these examples tend not to overlap much with the kinds of building designs for post-compulsory learning spaces which architects and architectural students look at. And what about closely related building types like new forms of creative offices and educational spaces in museums and galleries?

There is no way I can be comprehensive with a relatively small number of (B&W) images. So my intention is to go for less well known spaces, but which illustrate some of the key issues and questions. Which could upset both learning spaces design specialists when their good work is not included and architects/students looking for pretty pictures. Ahh well....

Where do we look for good examples?

One of the important aspects of the recent CETLD-hosted Learning Spaces Special Interest Group (SIG) was the way it brought together people across education, and between educationalists from universities and from other institutions. So in addition to learning development people, there were also librarians and computing specialists; and as well as representatives from Brighton, Sheffield, Sheffield-Hallam, Sussex, Nottingham, Cardiff and Coventry universities there were also participants from the V& A and Writtle College. 

As well as visits to both CETLD and InQbate, part of the CETL-C initiative, the group explored examples they had each been asked to bring of good learning spaces they knew; in terms of what was effective, was what challenging and issues around evaluation. 

As well as some of the more well-known innovative learning spaces recently built in unversities, types of spaces discussed included some from elsewhere:

·       Outdoor formal garden space, Devon  - good for formal, informal, complex, varied, surprising and aspiration reasons; challenges for weather, intrusions

·       Herman Miller National Design Centre, London.  Multi-functional modular open space. Good for flexible, adaptable, “aspirational”, interesting use of partitions; challenges – noisy, flexible, adaptable, jack of all trades etc. and noisy

·       National Art library, V&A museum, good for quiet, peaceful space, old desks, beautiful view, challenges can include high noise at times   

I have also recently been looking at the various Google offices again, and thinking two - potentially contradictory - thoughts. First, that we need to look at these too (and the whole impact of ideas of the 'knowledge economy' on office design. And second, that we need to know more about what is distinctive about spaces for post-compulsory learning, so that we can really understand what kinds of changes (whether physical or virtual) can enhance learning at this level. 

Image shows facade of Herman Miller National Design Centre, recently opened in the Aldwych in London.

Engaging with theory

I have recently been re-reading Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger's very influential book Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (1991) and exploring both the huge impact around, and various critiques of, Wenger's work since on communities of practice. 

Without doubt, the concept of communities of practice has a real resonance to our understanding of how learning happens. Wenger and his colleagues have moved beyond learning focused at the level of the teacher-learner and articulated it instead as a wider - and crucially social - process. 

In the context of learning spaces though, one of the most interesting aspects is Wenger's idea of repertoire - that is, the way that particular objects, spaces and procedures which 'define' a specific community of practice. As he says, this is  “the process of giving form to our experience by producing objects that congeal that experience into ‘thingness’. In so doing, we create points of focus around which the negotiation of meaning becomes organised (…) any community of this kind produces abstractions, tools, symbols, stories, terms and concepts that reify something of that practice in a congealed form.” (Wenger 1998:58-59)

Wenger is most interested in this as a means of stabilisation, where objects, spaces and procedures become unthought about  'reifications', helping to embed and normalise a community of practice. But if we are exploring what might make better learning spaces, then both the communities of practice of post-compulsory learning and different subject disciplines compulsory education have to be problematicised. Here, then, we can begin to think about learning spaces as an area of contested repertoires. Which has all sorts of potential for thinking about both conceptual frameworks and research methods. 

Image: photograph by ex-RCA group Jan Family

Places to study?

As part of my Russian trip, I went on a visit of the Moscow State University - built in the 1950s by Stalin (as one of his infamous Gothic skyscrapers) - which was designed as a self-contained campus with accommodation for 6, 000 students, on Sparrow Hills just to the south of the Moskva river.

I was taken around by students who were well aware of the building's history (it was built by prisoners), but also felt the importance of both remembering and continuing its ethos of good academic education. They showed us these original desks - still in use throughout and facing a traditional chalk blackborad - and said how much they were motivated by sitting where previous generations of scholars had learnt.

For some reason this reminded me of a recent summary of learning spaces at Cambridge University, written as part of the Learning Landscape project, funded by the Higher Education Academy. The learning experience at somewhere like Cambridge is just so different to, for example, one of the ex-polytechnics; both because of the postive echoes of its academic history and because of the range and type of spaces available across both accommodation (the Colleges) and university departments.

As author Dr. Catherine Howell writes, "Colleges are important to students because they provide a spectrum of critical study resources - including study space - within easy reach, and because they are learning and social communities. These communities are especially valued by undergraduate students in view of the study workload, the high-stakes assessment system and the relatively short Cambridge terms, all of which contribute to the '24-hour' work culture." (Howell 2008:4). For nme, this is yet another warning against the glib generalities of 'formal' versus 'informal' learning spaces.

As the two main CETLD learning spaces researchers, Hilary and I have been talking a lot recently about what is already available, in terms of appropriate conceptual frameworks, research methods and taxonomies. Hilary has been reviewing the many good practice case studies of contemporary learning spaces in post-compulsory education. There are lots of interesting examples but also some on-going problems: potential citation distortion (where the same examples are referenced again and again without much checking on the validity of the data proffered); difficulties of finding out what is happening across the sector, intersecting with varying degrees of promotion by individual universities and projects; and – because of the recent focus on technology-rich and informal learning spaces – a tendency to ignore (or fail to effectively classify/compare and contrast) the range of developments taking place across the variety of learning spaces from lecture theatres, to labs, to studios to research centres.

In the latter area, for example, Woods Bagot have done an interesting ‘study tour’ of advanced learning institutes, aimed at bringing together researchers from different disciplines; of which the MIT Stata Center (pictured above), designed by Frank Gehry Associates, is probably one of the most famous/infamous.

These are very relevant to CETLD because it brings together HE institutions with non-university partners. Who, for example, is analysing and comparing museum education spaces with HE versions? Well, us I hope!

Towards a working definition of learning spaces?

When I started research into learning spaces in post-compulsory education I found little not framed by the 'commonsense' notion that we should be moving from formal (passive, boring) to informal (active, exciting) spaces in both physical design and teaching and learning methods.

Just how changes in spaces and changes in learning were connected remain under-explored; as do the complexities of why and how to implement any effective improvements.

More recently, with some serious attempts to re-think evaluation methods for example, it feels like we are beginning to see the need for both better theory and practices. So it was great to read - for the first time in my experience - a researcher examining what might make a working definition of the concept learning spaces (in her case using the term 'learning landscapes'). I don't know if I agree with Angela Thody (researcher for the University of Lincoln's Learning Landscapes project) attempt, but it offers a very useful start to help thinking and debate:

University learning landscapes are conceptually holistic, loosely-coupled interconnections of all formal and informal, on- and off-campus, virtual and physical facilities, sites and services and how stakeholders use them. A learning landscapes approach is distinguished from mere site management by academics’ and governors’ conscious decisions to manipulate all the traditional and innovative facilities so they are continually and ubiquitously available, collaborative opportunities to enhance learning. Preparations for this approach require understandings of why universities are still wanted, mapping of how they are now used and a belief that all elements of university environments have to justify their roles in learning. (Thody 2008(1):13)

And the image is from architect Sarah Wigglesworth, who is one of many contemporary architects very interested in finding ways of working with architectural space as a process - inseparable from the activities that go on in it.

The formal large lecture problem

Have recently been re-reading a research paper by Boyle and Nicol from the Centre for Academic Practice, University of Strathclyde, on using electronic ‘classroom communication systems’ (CCS) to improve teaching and learning for large, lecture-based groups. What Boyle and Nicol point out is that - whatever the preference for small-group, informal and interactive learning – the reality is of larger student cohorts and fewer staff. In that context, where the large lecture is not going to go away, they suggest that a CCS can improve the quality of learning.

If you have used such a system, you will know that it is basically enables participants in a large lecture setting to respond to a multiple choice question via an electronic handheld device, with total results then immediately displayed to the whole class as some form of bar chart. The experience is an odd one, since it feels a bit like being in some sort of TV quiz show, but the effects can be powerful. Boyle and Nicol evaluated the introduction of CCS into mechanical engineering courses at Strathclyde, aimed at dealing with lecturers problems with mass-lecturing; described as “weak conceptual understanding, insufficient interaction and discussion and low levels of motivation.” (p.2)

Via a couple of variations - one based on peer and the other class-wide discussion – lectures were re-framed to ask key concept questions, with students first providing their individual responses via the CCS and then discussing both their own understanding and the whole group feedback with each other. Overall the students were strongly supportive that such techniques improved their understanding, interaction and motivation compared to traditional lectures. Teachers were able to quickly gauge how well the class understood concepts under discussion, and had a mechanism whereby students could compare their own progress to the overall distribution, which - together with group discussion - helped more students to ‘get’ the key concepts.

There are two points to add here. First, as Boyle and Nicol discuss, the bigger issue becomes less about the technology and much more about the design of the teaching and learning process. Lecture writing becomes must more a matter of developing a sequence of test construction, and the management of student interaction. So, again, we need to make more explicit and have ways of debating underlying pedagogic practices.

The second point is that such a study underlines the complexity of thinking about the design of learning spaces. This technology at least partially shifts the relationships between (presumed active) teacher and (presumed passive) students in a lecture theatre setting, without the space having to change at all. Or rather, it is the conceptual/social space which is changed in this case, not the physical one.

Adult learning beyond the campus

In response to its Learning Revolution white paper, the Government has a £20m Transformation Fund to support informal adult learning - learning for pleasure, self-development and community development - which has been awarding money to a wide range of projects "all with the objective of seeing creative learning flourish across the country." These funds are enabling collaborations between museums, galleries, universities and colleges to offer particular schemes for adult learners. The emphasis, I guess, wil be on social empowerment and cohesion, which is already central to how museums (but not so much universities) think about their role.

In fact have recently been re-visiting the Museum, Libraries and Archives (MLA) Inspired Learning for All website, which lists the various learning frameworks put together by different quangos for schools and adult education; why do I feel that these groups - rightly or wrongly - are much more willing to give explicit definitions of what learning is than any university academic...


Image of Turner Contemporary, designed by David Chipperfield Associates and currently under construction in Margate, which has won one of the transformation awards for a project bringing old and young people together under the title Teenage

Never enough space!

As another academic year begins, I am aware yet again of that tension between feeling there is simply not enough space - particularly in studios where we still still wish for a model of one desk per student where they can work whenever they want - and knowing that in programming and occupancy terms, our buildings will feel relatively empty; that actual occupancy rates will be low compared to, say, offices.

And I still feel we should be able to design our way out of this problem, just can't work out how!

Helpfully, the University of Lincoln's Centre for Educational Research and Development is running a research project (in collaboration with DEGW) called Learning Landscapes "looking at the ways in which academics work with colleagues in Estates to develop and manage innovation in the design of teaching and learning spaces in Higher Education."

Experiencing formal learning

Recently had the opportunity to visit art and architecture courses at the Academy of Architecture in Moscow. It puts the debates about a formal -to- informal learning in the UK and elsewhere into a certain sort of perspective. Both architectural and art students still spend a considerable amount of their early training copying classical examples (busts, sculptures, columns and entablatures) through measured drawings, meticulously drawn and then shadowed in ink and wash; usually several months for one drawing.

We haven't done this in the UK since the 1960s, so it feels very dated. But it also makes one think about why the Russians still do it, and we don't - and what the impacts are on the students learning.

Finding good examples of learning spaces

Now we have a new Learning Spaces researcher at CETLD - Hilary Smith - we are beginning a piece of work planned for some time; a critical revisit of the most frequently cited 'best practice' UK Learning Spaces case studies. Not surprisingly, the same examples come up again and again in JISC and other reports so we felt it was time to take an overview and explore the underlying intentions, assumptions and evaluation methodologies of these studies. Our aim is to develop richer and more rigorous methods for assessing 'success'; and then test these on some other learning spaces (including more 'traditional' lecture theatres etc.)

Luckily, it looks like the JELS study (see previous post) by LSRI, University of Nottingham has also undertaken such a taxonomy, although it is not in the public domain yet. I have the feeling that this is something that lots of people involved in Learning Spaces are thinking of doing.....


Image by Jos Boys; disabled and deaf artist workshop on 'a space for two people to meet' at InQbate, CETL-C, Summer 2008. Artwork by Mandy Legg and Sabine Gruhn

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

---

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.