High Performance Learning Spaces subject of new research

Since the doors to Wallenberg Hall opened in 2002, its high performance classrooms have been home to everything from Shakespeare to Hebrew and Classics to oceanography courses. But the impact of the new technology in teaching, its benefits and drawbacks, has not been the subject of intense study until this fall, when Co-Director and Principal Investigator Stig Hagstrom and acting deputy director Ken Dauber, both of the Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning, launched their research project with a grant from the Wallenberg Global Learning Network (WGLN).

By the end of summer quarter, 2004, Hagstrom and Dauber hope to have gathered important information on how faculty, students and visitors have utilized the cutting edge technology in Wallenberg. Their findings may shape teaching, learning and research of the future.

“What I think we'll find is there are different ways of teaching and certain styles of classroom usage that light up the technology in different ways,” says Dauber. “When we look at a room we see a collection of equipment, but when you put a particular class in the room and the technology gets used, you learn much more about the benefits as well as any disadvantages.”

The research has the potential to be particularly helpful to other groups on campus and universities around the world, who are in the process of developing their own high-performance teaching facilities.

“If you know what kind of teaching there will be in a particular facility, you will be able to figure out what kind of technology is best suited for it,” says Dauber.

The WGLN-supported project will involve gathering and analyzing existing surveys, focus group transcripts, video and audio records documenting student and faculty use of Wallenberg classrooms. The research team includes technology advisor Dan Gilbert, who works closely with faculty members teaching in Wallenberg, and Bob Smith, SCIL director of technology, as well as Marcelo Clerici-Arias, associate director for Social Sciences and Technology at the Stanford Center for Teaching and Learning and John Nash, WGLN director of evaluation.

A final report highlighting key findings on the ways in which teaching and technology interact will provide crucial information for everyone from equipment manufacturers and facilities planners to teachers at all levels who are involved in the use of technology in the classroom. In addition to the report, a new web site will provide further in-depth analysis, links to similar and contrasting facilities, and an ongoing exploration of technology in Wallenberg, perhaps in the form of a blog or wiki.

“The primary goal of the study,” according to SCIL Co-Director Stig Hagstrom, “is to develop a protocol for evaluating the effects of high technology in teaching and learning.”

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