|
Introduction to Method
l Key
Teaching/Learning Activities and Examples of Spaces l
Evaluating Learning Spaces l
These materials are for use only by
institutions that subscribe to The TLT Group, to
participants in TLT Group workshops, and to invited guests.
The TLT Group is a non-profit whose existence is made
possible by their subscription and registration fees. if
your institution is not yet among
our subscribers,
we invite you to
join us,
use these materials, and help us continue to improve them!
If you have questions about your rights to use, adapt or
share these materials, please ask us (info @ tltgroup.org).
The
Flashlight approach can be applied to learning space
evaluation:
- The educational value of a space is mainly
determined by the teaching/learning activities that it
supports, potentially and actually.
- Most spaces are under-utilized, i.e., faculty and
students often don't realize that there are attractive,
effective activities that could be carried out in that
space, OR those activities are unnecessarily difficult
or discouraged by the space or the ways in which its
users are educated or supported.
- Therefore the value of almost any learning space can
be increased if those barriers are identified, analyzed,
and reduced.
- Those same kinds of inquiry into the matches and
mismatches between goals, activities and spaces can help
programs plan for renovations and for creation of new
kinds of learning spaces.
- These kinds of evaluation and planning are much more
likely to be effective if they are supported by an
effective coalition: faculty, technology staff, faculty
development staff, planners and architects,
representatives of the offices that schedule facility,
maintenance, and others.
Here
is a survey designed to ask faculty about their ideal
learning spaces. This is a first draft. Please send comments
to Steve Ehrmann at ehrmann @ tltgroup.org. It's now also
available as a template in Flashlight Online 1.0 (ZS36752).
Here's the introductory text I used (introduction fields in
templates begin as a blank; here's some draft text you could
copy, paste and adapt:
Our planning team is
considering ways of improving our classrooms and related
facilities: renovations, new technology, better support, and
options for new construction. We would like our facilities
to be seen as among the best in the world for supporting
imaginative teaching and effective learning. We need your
help to decide just how to translate that rather grand,
vague hope into action. Please look over all the questions
in this survey, think about them, and then respond. We will
report to all respondents on what respondents have had to
say, and about how our committee has used your consulting
help to make plans. Thanks! [This survey is a first draft.
Copyright belongs to The TLT Group. It may be used or
adapted only by staff or students at institutions
subscribing to TLT Group services.].
For surveys or focus groups evaluating
current learning spaces, you might want to use a sequence of
questions like this:
-
What teaching/learning activities are most important for
you? (give them an initial menu; you could draw on
our web
site for such an initial list)
-
For one of those activities, do you (a respondent to
this survey or interview, or a member of this focus
group) think this is an important activity (if not, go
to the next activity)
-
Have you tried this activity in the space we're
evaluating?
-
What aspects of this space make it easy, inviting, and
rewarding to do this activity?
-
Are there are elements of this institution, or your own
background, that make it easy, inviting, and rewarding
to do this (here)?
-
What aspects of this space make it awkward, difficult,
time-consuming, or unpleasant to do this activity here?
-
Are there other elements of this institution, or your
own background, that discourage you from doing this
activity here? or make the activity less successful than
it might otherwise be?
-
What's the best space (physical or online) at this
institution to do this activity? How is that space
better than this space?
-
Now that you've thought about it, what would be an ideal
space for doing this?
-
What other changes in the institution, your training,
etc would make it as easy, inviting, and rewarding as
possible for you to do this activity?
Course management systems support the
creation of certain types of virtual (online) learning
spaces. Click here to see a
guide to using faculty and student surveys to gather the
kinds of evidence that can help a university see how to
improve learning with its course management system.
Introduction to Method l
Key
Teaching/Learning Activities and Examples of Spaces l
Evaluating Learning Spaces l
|
