Exploring Informal Learning Space in the University

A Collaborative Approach

Graham Walton, Graham Matthews

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780367881832
• eBook ISBN: 9781317137375
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Library & Information Science
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Growing student numbers, increased student expectations, new approaches to learning, and fast-paced technological advances all contribute to the need for universities to take a more strategic approach to their buildings, including formal and informal learning spaces. Exploring Informal Learning Space in the University addresses the issue of informal learning space from the perspectives of a comprehensive range of stakeholders, including students, academics, facilities managers, university managers, IT managers, architects, interior designers, and librarians.

With contributions from a range of experts, practitioners and academics around the world, this book uses a combination of case studies and theoretical discussion to explore the rationale and theory of informal learning space alongside the practicalities of its planning, development and utilization. The volume is at once ambitious and pragmatic, combining innovative thinking with a firm awareness of practicalities, including the varied constraints faced by universities and the need to work in tandem with broader strategies.

Advocating broad collaboration at both planning and delivery stage, the result is essential reading for anyone involved in the delivery of learning space provision – from architects and designers, to university managers and strategists. It will also be of particular interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students engaged in the study of library & information science or higher education policy and strategy.

1
Informal learning spaces and universities

An introduction

Graham Matthews and Graham Walton

Introduction

There are many factors influencing how higher education is delivered. These include rapid and ongoing developments worldwide in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in universities and society in general, changes in the HE sector: increase in student numbers, widening participation (students from different backgrounds, part-time students, distance learners), innovations in learning, teaching and assessment, the current economic situation, globalisation, and sustainability issues. These all contribute to the need for universities to consider and address the effective use of their learning space, informal alongside formal, and virtual space, in an increasingly digital world (see MEM Events 2014, 2015 for recent examples of these from various perspectives and viewpoints). This book’s purpose is to:

• present an overview, with an international perspective, of current thinking, activities and issues relating to physical informal learning spaces in universities
• provide an opportunity for those with responsibility for planning the use of informal learning space to understand more clearly the issues involved and to help them learn from the experience of others
• influence strategic thinking and policy making in the use of informal learning space in universities in the context of other developments
• increase awareness and understanding of university space planning and management issues among a range practitioners such as administrators, architects, educators, estates managers, IT professionals
• facilitate sharing of experience and practice through presentation of views from various perspectives on and insights into current issues and how they might be addressed.

The focus is thus to bring together the views and experiences of experts from different backgrounds from across the world. They will outline and discuss the practicalities relating to the recent global development and sustainability of physical, informal learning spaces in universities. Relevant theory and context is acknowledged and addressed where appropriate, with references to sources where this is discussed further. Included are individual experiences and expertise of the different stakeholders involved in the development and sustainability of informal learning spaces. Alongside this, emphasis is placed on the significance and value of collaboration between these stakeholders and this theme runs throughout the book. Authors from Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, the UK, and the USA offer and consider a wide range of perspectives and opportunities. This will help inform others involved in different stages in the design, management and use of informal learning spaces in universities across the world as they develop their physical space. Senior managers in universities may find it informative to read the book to help them understand both the issues and opportunities facing their academics, facilities managers and students and the wider context. Students of architecture and design, educational technology, and learning and teaching, will also find it of interest.

Images, diagrams or pictures of informal learning spaces in the book, are limited. Those looking for such illustrations will find examples aplenty via the Internet and through references in chapters throughout the book. Rather than seek to have a single acronym such as ILS or one term used across all chapters, authors have been allowed to use their own descriptions.

Learning space and development of ‘informal learning space’ in universities

The value of collaboration is captured in a recently published UK HE Learning Space Toolkit (UCISA 2016) produced by the Standing Conference for Heads of Media Services (SCHOMS), the Association of University Directors of Estates (AUDE) and the Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association (UCISA). In the introduction, it aptly summarises the current situation:

Learning, teaching, and indeed the entire context in which universities operate, has changed significantly during the course of the 21st century … Universities have recognised the need for investment in both formal and informal learning spaces to support the student experience and this includes the requirement to balance innovative and collaborative spaces with traditional tiered lecture theatres, which are increasingly being adapted to new learning practices and continue to play a useful role in the teaching of large cohorts. We are moving away from desk and chair workspaces to providing a range of types of furnishing and deploying a variety of technologies. We are also seeing a shift in where these facilities are located with the development of more learning hubs and satellites. This collaboration signals the importance of a cross-professional approach to learning space developments. Such developments, whether new build or refurbishment, are complex projects that tend to happen infrequently and represent a substantial financial investment with a significant lifespan. No one professional group has enough knowledge to make the best decisions alone.

(UCISA 2016: 5)

Such development is happening worldwide (see Abbott et al. 2014; Baroncelli et al. 2014; Neary et al. 2010; Nenonen et al. 2015; Painter et al. 2013, for example). Issues, activities and factors influencing this around the world are introduced in this chapter and developed in the individual chapters that follow.

Definition and terminology

A key factor in considering informal learning space in universities is that there is no universally agreed or applied definition of ‘informal learning space’. The term is used or interpreted variously and/or imprecisely by many and this varies according to setting. This includes for example workplace and the different educational environments (physical, virtual). Different stakeholders, as will become apparent in the chapters by the contributors to this book, have different ‘takes’ on it. The existence of these varied perspectives has been called the ‘conceptual fracturing in the field’ noted by Ellis and Goodyear (2016: 150). This indiscriminate use of terminology is reflected in a conversation one of the editors had recently with a colleague, with a background in design, who commented when the editor mentioned ‘informal learning spaces’: “I know what you mean, but that’s not what I call them”. Similarly, ‘informal’ is used with the use of social media and ICT for learning; this book’s focus is on physical space; reference to e-learning, social media, etc. is made where it has specific significance to the physical space and its design and use.

When contributors were given briefs by the editors it was outlined what they should address but they were not given a ‘fixed’ definition of ‘informal learning space’. All seem to have taken on board an understanding from their perspective of what the book is trying to address. One question we had from a contributor was:

Will you be defining informal learning spaces in the introduction to the book? I have read most of your other book and what I have come up with is a definition of informal learning as follows …: a student driven course or progamme-based study which occurs outside the classroom (or in classroom out of class hours) with no direct teacher involvement.

(Jamieson 2009 in Matthews and Walton 2013)

Various recent research studies addressing informal learning space(s) provide insight into what these spaces are and what goes on in them. In a well-cited paper, Harrop and Turpin (2013: 9) offer this definition: ‘informal learning spaces are defined as non-discipline specific spaces frequented by both staff and students for self-directed learning activities and can be within and outside library spaces’.

Moreland (2015), referring to the above paper, offers:

I see these spaces as the type of learning environment that fills the void between quiet library spaces and busy refectory spaces, as they provide the type of space that both students and staff can drop in and use to discuss ideas, practice presentations, carry out group work etc.

McDaniel quotes Jamieson’s definition (2009) of informal learning as ‘course-related activity undertaken individually and collaboratively on campus that occurs outside the classroom’, and adds:

Independent learning is independent from teacher or faculty-led instruction, and generally can be understood as any supplemental learning activities that occurs outside of the formal instructional setting, including, but not limited to, course reading, assignments, and individual and group projects’.

(McDaniels 2014: 4)

Cunningham and Walton (2016: 50) also refer to Jamieson:

Informal learning is a “complex web of experiences and...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Notes on editors and contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Informal learning spaces and universities: an introduction
• 2 The strategic perspective
• 3 Learning space and campus planning: theoretical deliberations and practical implementations
• 4 An architect’s perspective
• 5 Informal learning spaces: interior design
• 6 Building new informal learning spaces: mini case studies
• 7 Effective use of information and communication technologies in informal learning spaces
• 8 Informal learning spaces: a facilities management perspective
• 9 Informal learning spaces in university libraries
• 10 Student perspectives
• 11 Evaluation of informal learning spaces
• 12 Informal learning spaces: the future – swimming with whales?
• Index