Study shows High Performance Learning Spaces do make a difference

Since its opening in 2002, Wallenberg Hall has been home to a wide range of classes that have served as testing grounds for the rich diversity of technology which planners believed would significantly improve teaching and learning. But this fall the first study exploring the impact of Wallenberg's facilities and support staff provides tangible information about how faculty and students are using Wallenberg Hall to transform and enhance the learning experience.

The High Performance Learning Spaces (HPLS) research team, led by SCIL co-director Stig Hagström and composed of SCIL staff members Ken Dauber, Dan Gilbert, Bob Smith, John Nash and Sam Steinhardt, plus graduate student Lee Martin, reviewed video tapes, focus group transcripts, surveys and other documentation of class activities over a period of eight months.

Findings from the HPLS study fell into three categories:

1. Blurring classroom boundaries :   In their review of the uses of Wallenberg Hall's advanced resource classrooms, researchers found that a major factor in student/professor interaction was the ability to blur boundaries. One example of this is the capability to bring outside participants into the classroom. Videoconferencing allowed teachers to hold class discussions with experts from around the world, creating a sense of a dynamic, ongoing conversation, said SCIL Acting Deputy Director Ken Dauber. For example, it is possible to bring in an expert who is in from Europe for 20 minutes and, "have a really rich classroom experience for which there is no real analogue in a regular classroom," said Dauber.
2. Flexibility at different scales: The high performance learning spaces of Wallenberg Hall support working in small and large groups utilizing the modular furniture and technology. "Huddleboards" - portable, stackable white boards - make it easy for students to brainstorm in small groups. Featherweight chairs on wheels and rolling, tilting tables promote seamless changes in grouping, encouraging collaboration that was visible to researchers in a wide range of classes.   Classroom laptops and Pilot PCs allow students to work individually, then plug into a big screen and immediately share their work with the class. "You would see the class moving from small groups to large groups several times during one session," noted Dauber.
3. Supporting complex displays: The Wallenberg Hall technology significantly enhances a key feature of any classroom: displaying and discussing documents and images. The large-scale Web displays provide faculty and students ready access to a huge range of information, while technologies like electronic whiteboards allow them to layer their own notations on top of outside material, and then to save their work for later review.

The learning spaces of Wallenberg Hall were designed for project-based pedagogy in which students work individually with a design focus and then come together to present the results of their work. This approach of providing spaces for people to do work has had a profound impact on classroom dynamics in classes of all types, the research team found. Boundaries between students and faculty have been effectively blurred, and the sharing of knowledge and information occurs in a very flexible environment.

"One question we asked was whether these spaces could support the full range of teaching that goes on around campus," said Dauber, "and the answer is definitely 'yes.'"

"Clearly one of the reasons we are able to do this has to do with the effective support we are able to provide those teaching here," said Dauber. "What we need to do next is see how we can package and disseminate what is working here in ways that are flexible but affordable."

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