Some faculty from the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) have a very interesting article in Educause Quarterly that describes a classroom re-design project — the “Learning Studio.” In this Learning Studio, the emphasis is on modularity (e.g., reconfigurable tables) as well as top-notch tech equipment (e.g., laptops, touch displays) and how these can facilitate collaboration and de-centralize learning. Interestingly, one of the initial advocates was not from science, technology, or business, but humanities – specifically the English Department. In assessing the results of the studio space, they did something rather interesting. Besides the usual quantitative measures, they set up a running blog where both faculty and students reflected on their experiences in using the space.
Overall, the early results of their assessment of the Learning Studio shows solid promise, but they balance this by considering the Hawthorne effect. It seems to me that another thing to consider would be the impact of mobile computing. A lot has been written about this already and so I look forward to seeing more educators writing about how this might change the look and feel of classroom learning spaces. For example, if students brought their own mobile devices to the learning space how would that change the economics? The approximate cost for the UMSL Learning Studio was a little over $200k. Not an insignificant cost.
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Educause, University Missouri-St. Louis
Filed under: Collaboration, Design, Teaching
[...] posts I wrote on some interesting modular design experiments at the University of Minnesota and the University of Missouri-St. Louis where it’s less about the institution providing lots of desktop computers and individual work [...]