Learning Spaces and Technologies

1. Barriers to Adoption

1.1. ○ (Jasmine) Do time and user constraints discourage technological use?

1.2. Have to avoid falling in love with a technology or experience without considering the challenges or opportunities of the actual learning involved. Otherwise, the learner’s experience and outcome may just end up being the silly hat that they wear.

1.3. (Amanda) any investment in technology or physical spaces needs an equal investment in education and professional development.

1.4. (Brittany) While I have no doubt that most students could be trained to learn in these environments, I wonder whether instructors would have a steeper learning curve in adapting their teaching methodologies and strategies in these new interactive and tech friendly spaces, and also about the time that could be required for them to utilize it all effectively.

1.5. (Armando) What is the role of teachers within a FLS then? How do teaching methods need to change to adapt to FLS?

1.6. Orchestration

1.6.1. (Caitlin) Some of these suggestions and concepts seem relatively simple to adapt and apply in classrooms, and we see them modeled in our classes in the MLD program - yet rarely elsewhere. Why is this? I think the orchestration article speaks to this a little in illuminating how many elements the teacher has to keep in mind while working within their various constraints - managing all of the variables is more complex than we might imagine.

1.6.2. (Amanda) These are examples of the system adapting to small amounts of information provided by a single student. Both of these things are infinitely easier than my time teaching mathematics. In the classroom, the individual teacher responds to those same pieces of information (cues in the form of answers) times 25ish, minus the adaptive software, and plus the extraneous events, envelope activities, infra activities, etc. This really helped me understand and further articulate why I disagreed so strongly with our previous reading titled Instructional Designers are Teachers.

1.6.3. (Anel) The question he poses, "Is orchestration different from instructional design?" Yes! Design is a process, "Design is the creation of a plan or convention for the construction of an object, system or measurable human interaction., " Orchestration is placing things together but the conductor is the attraction. Instructional Design places the student at the center.

2. Personalization, scale and equity

2.1. (Caitlin) But I think this is just a piece of a larger and more pernicious problem rooted in inequity, and all to do with the resources, respect, time, and funding offered. Professors at elite institutions likely receive more support to and space to be able to iterate and experiment in their classrooms; more resources and funding to support technology; smaller class sizes and constraints -- and I'm sure we could further complicate this theory by disaggregating the word "professors," since those with marginalized identities probably face barriers to these benefits.

2.2. The students who receive these more thoughtful learning environments are recipients of privilege.

2.3. ○ (Amanda) is it really possible for an instructional designer to design for a large scale? I asked this question while reading about FSLs, too. I thought about my favorite learning spaces and how many different types of preferred learning environments exist. How do the architects of these learning spaces appeal to different audiences? Do they?

2.4. Can instructor ever design the perfect environment with the most effective tools for each of their students?

2.5. ○ (Armando) This experience made me think of those students in Continuing Education programs, I wonder whether FLS should be implemented only for students of certain generations who are more devoted to technology.

2.6. Theoretically, the reading gives a solid framework of how to design interactive multimodal learning spaces within a homogeneous group of students (same levels of skills and abilities). Nonetheless, it immediately made me think of students with disabilities, more specifically when the topic about instructional media is introduced. Honestly, I became more aware of this subject since I started working at CNDLS in “A Different Dialogue” and “Inclusive Pedagogy”. So, as Instructional Designers, how should we rethink this learning theory in terms of people with disabilities in a classroom? How should we manage the interactivity in a heterogenous group of students (multiple intelligences and (dis)abilities? Would the design principles (guided, reflection, feedback, pacing and pretraining) function similarly within a group of learners from different nationalities?

3. ○ (Ye) Design a learning environment and make it happen are two different things, like the initial design for car barn 315 is not the real look right now. And what’s more, I am thinking maybe learning environment is a field that can apply 20/80 principle. It means that we can put 20% energy and time to focus on future learning space design, and it will advance 80% learning results. And learning environment design could be like a kind of service design, it needs to change over time. Because I suppose that once the students getting used to the “new learning environment” that was built up several months ago, a small change can make a difference again.

4. The Impact of Learning Spaces

4.1. ○ (Rayna) How much does the design of a FLS matter if in-class pedagogy stays the same? Does it then put the burden on the students to figure out how to relate these FLS for effective studying?

4.2. ○ (Anne) I am a great believer that learning design isn’t just about technology or curriculum or even learner experience. The very design of a classroom is important too. I have experienced first-hand how space transforms how people move and how they interact with each other, and I’ve always been interested in how it relates to learning. Teaching in the Philippines is still very much focused on lectures. I don’t have a lot of data, but I do think that this is because most classrooms in the Philippines are still very traditional.

4.3. ○ (Anel) How can physical space allow for learning to occur?

4.4. Does learning space contribute to the feeling of belonging in higher learning ?

4.5. ○ (Camron) But should we consider how to reinvent libraries, hallways, office spaces, university grounds, and other learning spaces to exemplify and promote creativity, engagement, and innovation?

4.6. ○ (Armando) But very few academic institutions have shifted their view of learning spaces, they stick to the traditional lecture class. How learning spaces have evolved is, perhaps, a recurrent topic of debate, but it would be important to think critically as changes in technology have influenced teaching, learning goals and, more importantly, students' learning. As Hod mentions: future learning spaces are “a call-to-action to prepare students for a future that is already here” (pg. 2).

5. Innovation vs. effectiveness

5.1. (Jasmine) The implementation of technology in education has to considered through the prism of learning theory.

5.2. (Jasmine) It’s an exciting proposition to have this technology available, but is it as useful as we’d like to imagine or is this another case of tech-fad fever?

5.3. (Anne) The use of digital technologies is limited in the Philippines, but that does not mean that teachers aren’t being creative with the learning design. Many times, it is this lack of digital technology that pushed teachers’ creativity. For example, I’ve seen teachers use color coded cards to do the same thing the Lantern does. One take away we can have from this is that technology is not the be all and end all of learning design. It is simply one aspect of it.

5.4. (Sandy) So, it was very cool, but I don't recall students doing a lot of cool things with it. Students mainly still read out of the textbook, participated in group discussions and wrote note cards. It was also one of the cooler classrooms that had laptops for each student, which we did not use much.

5.5. We get excited when there are many new options, such as animations or audio, and it may seem cool to incorporate as much as possible. But, sometimes, as little as possible is the best.

5.6. (Mark) When designing learning environments and engagements, it is easy to get swept away in grandiose ideas of interaction, flashiness, making everything ‘clickable’, etc., but what exactly is the most effective way to create learning environments that foster that most productive and long-term learning?