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Table of Contents of Teaching/Learning
Activities and Spaces
One of the most fundamental decisions in both
course and space design is how important (or undesirable) it
is for students to talk with one another, and work together,
during a class meeting involving the instructor and all, or a
large number, of the students. In my experience, many
faculty members would like to use collaborative learning
approaches more than they do; the barriers are, in part,
barriers of space.
Physical classrooms: it's obviously important
to avoid seats that are fastened to the floor, so students
have a hard time facing one another or seeing one another's
work. If the seats are also densely packed so that
moving around is hard, so much the worse. Some
classrooms, on the other hand, put students together in group
carrels, or around tables, to make peer assistance and
discussion easier.
Virtual classrooms: Various
forms of computer conferencing, both synchronous and
asynchronous, provide opportunities for more students
to speak, and at a more thoughtful pace. In most of these
formats, speaking does not mean "interrupting". Nor are
accents a problem - students have more time to interpret
what's been said and to decide how to reply.
-Steve Ehrmann, The TLT Group; updated Dec. 11,
2004
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