Education - Innovative Learning Spaces and The Maker Movement

Week 12 - Innovative Learning Spaces and The Maker Movement

So I started by checking out this video before class - Steve Collis: Different spaces within a learning environment : Cave, Campfire and Watering Hole. Having now worked in an Innovative Learning Environment (ILE) at a new school the purpose of the different kinds of furniture and classroom setup makes a lot more sense. The way the environment is setup does allow for flexible learner centered activities. The video discusses how ILE ‘s puts relationships at the heart of the learning. Steve talks about these three broad kinds of spaces and intended relationships:

• Cave - reflective space, free of stimulation, so learners can withdraw slightly, relationship of student to self. In a virtual space an example could be blogging as I am doing now. In our learning spaces we have some furniture that is a single desk with sides for time when students wish to complete work on their own with minimal disruptions.
• Campfire - one to many relationship, essentially broadcasting expertise from a guru shared with the learners (often the teacher I guess could be another student too as we often get students to share expertise). In a virtual setting this could be like the flipped learning idea where students complete some online learning prior to the class where time can be spent refining, applying and consolidating the learning. In our learning spaces examples of this could be groups of students together on desks or seats with a teacher/student using a screen or whiteboard or other resources to facilitate a workshop or discussion etc.
• Watering Hole - many to many relationships, free improvised problems discussions, great for collaboration. Virtual examples would be any web 2.0 tool, an example I think of would be any kind of collaborative tool such as a Padlet or even a shared google doc for brainstorming or sharing or reflective learning etc. When I think of physical spaces at our school for this to occur I think of students working in small groups of tables joined together or seats/ lillypads/beanbags on the floor with a whiteboard table in the middle etc. 

During class this week we started by looking at Maker spaces - Learning by doing, hands on, student centred, can be as big or small as student wants and students have control over their own learning. I really love the idea of maker spaces and I run a class at our school which is focused on Robotics which is much like a maker space but I guess with a narrower focus. I have to say that it is extremely popular as the students love the tactile learning involved and learn to code the robot in a practical trial and error way, learning throughout the whole process.

Then we moved on to selecting and completing 3 out of 6 learning stations. Station 1 caught my eye as it was about having a look at ILE research. We are often questioned about our approaches to teaching and learning in our new ILE and there are many pros and cons so I was keen to find out what the research had to say. This research by Imms, W., Mahat, M., Byers, T. & Murphy, D. (2017) is from the University of Melbourne and included a number of NZ school so is quite relevant.

Basically what we found after wading through a lot of graphs and analysis was that deeper learning is related to the teaching approach and teacher mindset. An ILE helps with moving towards a more learner centred approach, however, it is actually the teacher mindset and willingness to move from the more teacher centred traditional approach to more learner focused pedagogy that really makes the difference. This can be done in an ILE or a more traditional classroom, it's all about the pedagogy.

References
Imms, W., Mahat, M., Byers, T. & Murphy, D. (2017). Type and Use of Innovative Learning Environments in Australasian Schools. ILETC Survey No. 1. Melbourne: University of Melbourne, LEaRN, Retrieved from: http://www.iletc.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/TechnicalReport_Web.pdf

Other related articles that refer to the ILETC report:

• Classroom design should follow evidence, not architectural fads
• Learning Spaces in Australia and New Zealand
• How open should a learning space be – acoustically?