Academic Learning Spaces
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This document discusses academic learning spaces in a distributed learning environment. It describes how academics inhabit a variety of physical, blended, and virtual spaces for work, networking, and motivation. These include formal and informal spaces that are personal, professional, mobile, and outdoor. The document also discusses how the ecological university model focuses on sustainability and responsibility to networks. Academics exist in multiple spaces for research, teaching, intellectual discourse, and personal development. New generation learning spaces will be more distributed, connected, and mobile to accommodate changing academic roles and knowledge networks.
Academic Learning Spaces
- 1. ‘ACADEMIC’ LEARNING SPACES IN A DISTRIBUTED LEARNING AND TEACHING ENVIRONMENT Professor Mike Keppell Director, The Flexible Learning Institute & Professor of Higher Education Charles Sturt University 1
- 2. OVERVIEW What type of university does an academic wish to work in? What is an academic learning space? What types of spaces do academics inhabit? Personal learning environments Professional learning networks Implications for ‘new generation learning spaces’ 2
- 3. BEING A UNIVERSITY RESEARCH - TEACHING - COMMUNITY 3
- 4. ‘BEING A UNIVERSITY’ Scientific University (research) Entrepreneurial University (unpredictable future) Bureaucratic University (means of organisng the complex entity) Corporate (objectives and policies are developed centrally) Liquid Universities (involved in wide range of intellectual and business opportunities) Ecological University (Barnett, 2011) 4
- 5. ECOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY Global connectedness and dependence on world around them Instead of ‘having an impact’ on the world which can be both positive and negative ecological universities seek sustainability They are self-sustainable in their multiple levels of interactions. They adopt a ‘care for the world’ as opposed to an ‘impact on the world’ approach (Barnett, 2011). 5
- 6. ECOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY Networked university Values and fosters its networks and their interconnectedness Feels a responsibility to the well-being of these networks (Barnett, 2011). 6
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- 8. ACADEMIC LEARNING SPACES Physical, blended or virtual ‘areas’ that: enhance academic ‘work’ that motivate academic ‘work’ enable networking Spaces where academics optimize the perceived and actual affordances of the space. 8
- 9. Distributed Learning Spaces Physical Blended Virtual Formal Informal Formal Informal Mobile Personal Academic Professional Outdoor Practice 9
- 10. ACADEMIC SPACES Barnett (2011) suggests that “today’s university lives amid multiple time-spans, and time- speeds” (p. 74). Constant email... Committee meetings...... Historians who focus on the past Researchers who may focus on the future 10
- 11. ACADEMIC SPACES Universities may need to be conscious of the 24/7 existence of their students across the globe, each in their own unique time-span. Virtual spaces Residential students 11
- 12. ACADEMIC SPACES Barnett (2011) suggests that academics may be active in university spaces that may include: Intellectual and discursive space which focus on the contribution to the wider public sphere. e.g. presentations, media, advising, translating research into practical benefits, community involvement, etc 12
- 13. ACADEMIC SPACES Epistemological space which focuses on the “space available for academics to pursue their own research interests” (p. 76). e.g. labs, libraries, with colleagues at other universities, schools, etc 13
- 14. ACADEMIC SPACES Pedagogical and curricular space focuses on the spaces available to trial new pedagogical approaches and new curricular initiatives. e.g. physical and virtual sandpits, working groups, meetings, etc 14
- 15. ACADEMIC SPACES Ontological space which focuses on ‘academic being’ which is becoming increasingly multi-faceted beyond the research, teaching and community commitments. In fact “the widening of universities’ ontological spaces may bring both peril and liberation” (p. 77). e.g. diverse roles may include: instructional designer, educational technologist, academic staff developer, professional developer, manager, administrator, facilitator, teacher, researcher, evaluator, presenter, writer, editor, consultant, project manager, change agent and innovator. 15
- 16. PERSONAL LEARNING SPACES Personal learning environments (PLE) integrate formal and informal learning spaces Customised by the individual to suit their needs and allow them to create their own identities. A PLE recognises ongoing learning and the need for tools to support life-long and life-wide learning. 16
- 17. CONNECTIVISM PLE may also require new ways of learning as knowledge has changed to networks and ecologies (Siemens, 2006). The implications of this change is that improved lines of communication need to occur. “Connectivism is the assertion that learning is primarily a network-forming process” (p. 15). 17
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- 21. PRESENT OR FUTURE WEB 2.0 SPACES? 21
- 22. Professional Virtual Learning Spaces 22
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- 25. MOBILE LEARNING SPACES “Learning when mobile means that context becomes all-important since even a simple change of location is an invitation to revisit learning” (ALT-J Vol 17, No.3 p.159) 25
- 26. MOBILE LEARNING SPACES “With its strong emphasis on learning rather than teaching, mobile learning challenges educators to try to understand learners’ needs, circumstances and abilities even better than before. This extends to understanding how learning takes place beyond the classroom, in the course of daily routines, commuting and travel, and in the intersection of education, life, work and leisure” (Kukulska-Hulme, 2010, p. 181). 26
- 27. ‘NEW GENERATION LEARNING SPACES’ Connectivism Networked academics Mobile academics Academics working in more distributive spaces 27