Affordances of Physical and Virtual Learning Spaces

AFFORDANCES OF PHYSICAL AND

VIRTUAL LEARNING SPACES

Professor Mike KeppellProfessor of Higher Education

President, asciliteDirector, The Flexible Learning Institute

Charles Sturt University

1Wednesday, 21 July 2010

OverviewAssumptions

PrinciplesLearning spaces?

Subject InteractionsDiversity of learning

spacesBlended learning spaces

AffordancesPutting it all together


AssumptionsUniversities value and seek to inculcate the skills essential for lifelong and life wide learning, producing graduates who will continue to develop intellectually, professionally and socially beyond the bounds of formal education.

Universities believe that programs, services and teaching methods should be responsive to the diverse cultural, social and academic needs of students, enabling them to adapt to the demands of university education and providing them with the cultural capital for life success.


Higher Education PrinciplesEquivalence of Learning Outcomes ethical obligations

Student Learning Experience traverses physical,

blended and virtual learning spaces

Constructive Alignment

learning outcomes, subject, degree

program, generic attributes

Discipline Pedagogies specific needs of disciplines


Learning Spaces? Physical, blended or virtual learning environments that enhance as opposed to constraining learning

Physical, blended or virtual ‘areas’ that motivate a user to participate for learning benefits

Spaces where both teachers and students optimize the perceived and actual affordances of the space

Spaces that promote authentic learning interactions


Subject Interactions

Information access (subject expectations)

Interactive learning (learner-to-content interactions):

Networked learning (learner-to-learner, learner-to-teacher interactions)

User-generated content (learners-as-designers, assessment-as-learning) (Herrington & Oliver, 2001).


Diversity of Learning Spaces

Physical Virtual

Formal Informal InformalFormal

Blended

Mobile Personal

Outdoor Professional Practice


Physical Learning Spaces

Formal physical learning spacesInformal physical learning spacesIndependent learning Peer learningStudy-time and spaceNeed to be adaptable and flexible for learning and teaching as opposed to being designed for one purpose


Formal & Informal Spaces







Virtual Learning Spaces

Formal virtual learning spacesInformal virtual learning spacesIndependent learning Peer learning


Formal Virtual Learning Spaces

BlackboardWebCTMoodle Sakai

FacebookFlickr

YouTubeTwitter

IFormal

Formal

Informal

Informal Virtual Learning Spaces

Informal


Personal Learning Spaces




Mobile Learning SpacesIs mobile learning just part of everyday learning? (ALT-J Vol 17, No.3)GPS, wi-fi, mp3 players“Learning when mobile means that context becomes all-important since even a simple change of location is an invitation to revisit learning” (p.159)Extending lecturers personal ‘presence’Disruption of users’ presence using SMS (Corneulius & Marston, 2009).


Outdoor Learning Spaces

These pathways, thoroughfares and occasional rest areas are generally given a functional value in traffic management and are more often than not developed as an after thought in campus design. As such the thoroughfares and rest areas are under valued (or not recognized) as important spaces for teaching and learning (Rafferty, 2009).






Blended Learning?

“It is a design approach whereby both face-to-face and online learning are made better by the presence of each other” (Garrison & Vaughan, 2008, p.5).

“It is a complete rethinking and redesign of the educational environment and learning experience” (p.x)

Is blended learning the future of higher education?


Activity-level Blending Instructor Role Student

RoleResources (Content)

Resources (Services) Assessment

Off-line

Allocate reading. Ask

students to read required reading

and post summary in

LMS

Read respective

chapterReading

Some discussion

about topic in face-to-face

class

Online Facilitator

Post a one paragraph

summary and comment on

two other posts

Student and instructor posts in

discussion forum

Discussion forum

Feedback from peers in online

discussion. Feedback from

instructor in online

discussion forum.


Subject & Course Level Blending

Subject-level blending: One of the most common forms. Distinct face-to-face and online components to support learning outcomes.

Degree-level blending: Different learning experiences using physical and virtual spaces across the degree program. Use of e-portfolio in key subjects throughout degree.


Paradigms of Blended Learning

Enabling blends: These address access and equity issues. Provision of equivalent learning outcomes in physical, virtual and blended learning environments.

Enhancing blends: Incremental changes to the pedagogy in face-to-face, virtual and blended learning environments.

Transforming blends: Major redesign of pedagogy e.g. Blended problem-based learning (Graham, 2006).


Flexibility of Learning SpacesFlexible learning and teaching spaces allow adaptability over time for different uses. Spaces need to be used for students who are both physically present and students who never visit the campus. In addition homes, cars, buses, hotels, cafes become mobile spaces where the student undertakes learning. Studying subject materials while travelling to work via train or bus may represent the learning space for some students




Study, Time & Space

In addition to the notion of physical/virtual and formal/informal, the concept of time also needs to be considered. Students’ use of space during a semester will be influenced by time of day, day of week and week of semester. Students may utilize space dependent on their other constraints of work and family and timing of classes and travel.



Study, Time & Space

Students may have only certain days to study. Early stages of a subject may encourage students to discuss content with other peers, while group assessment tasks will also require students to work in teams and use space for discussion and negotiation. When exams are nearing, students may revert to quiet individual spaces for self-study as opposed to peer learning.


What are Affordances? When you first see something you have never seen before, how do you know what to do?

“An affordance is the design aspect of an object which suggests how the object should be used” (Norman, 1988).

Determined by context, culture, instinct, mental model e.g. hyperlinked text on website

When designers make use of affordances the user knows what to do just by looking


Learning Space Affordance Example

Face-to-Face Teaching & Learning

oral communication oral feedback to a question

Learning Management

Systems

information accessinteractive learningnetworked learning

materials development

subject outlinemultimedia

forumproject

Learning Commons informal learningdiscussion about

lecturepeer learning


Learning Space Affordance Example

Tutorialin-depth group

discussionpeer learning

discussion of reading

discussion of presentation

Residential School

practical workpeer interaction

sense of belonging to university

practical work on IT networks

Practice

authentic learningcommunity of

practicementor/mentee

applied learning in discipline


Putting it all

together




http://www.csu.edu.au/division/landt/flexible-learning/

http://www.skgproject.com






2010 BookPhysical and Virtual Learning Spaces in Higher Education: Concepts for the Modern Learning

Environment

http://web.me.com/keppell/spaces/Welcome.html

A book edited by Professor Mike Keppell

Associate Professor Kay Souter & Matthew Riddle

Charles Sturt University, AustraliaLatrobe University, Australia


https://weboutlook.csu.edu.au/exchange/

https://weboutlook.csu.edu.au/exchange/