Abstract:

As on-line content becomes more prevalent, sophisticated and engaging, Australia’s universities are refocussing their attention on the importance of the physical learning experience. In a world that values communication, creativity, collaboration and innovation how do we foster and develop these attributes in our students? New agendas for teaching and learning are evolving from such discussions and the physical settings required to support these agendas are changing the fabric of our tertiary campuses.

Like most universities, Monash University in Melbourne, Australia was grappling with what ‘the other side of the flip’ means in a blended learning environment. What will the on-campus learning experiences be, and what kind of learning environments will be required to facilitate them? As a general trend the demand for large capacity tiered lecture theatres is decreasing and being replaced by smaller class sizes that allow richer student-to-student interaction and more teacher-to-student interaction. Architectus was commissioned by Monash to document and categorise a range of these possible future learning spaces. A physical framework was created that directly responded to the University’s pedagogical framework.

It became clear early in the process that language descriptors of the physical settings was impeding communication between academics, time-tablers and the facility planners. What was the difference between a ‘collaborative’ space and a ‘project’ space, what’s the difference between an ‘interactive’ lecture and an ‘inclusive’ lecture etc…?
Architectus established a common language to describe all the types of future learning settings and these became the Monash specific learning space 'modalities' with associated costing.

In parallel another team set out to audit 675 spaces across four campuses - Architectus was able to create a 3D data bank of all spaces. The models generated floor, ceiling and wall square meterage as well as occupancy numbers and condition ratings.

The third step was to bring the two together. Architectus developed Revit templates of each of the eleven modalities and proceeded to apply 'test fits' over every existing learning space. Could a 250 seat tiered lecture theatre be reconfigured to a collaborative modality? Could a flat floor tutorial room be reconfigured into a project modality? More than 7400 such questions were answered by this test fit process, and the result was a vastly expanded data bank for Monash.

Monash used the data generated to develop an online tool for the University. This tool has been utilised by the Buildings and Property Division for future planning, by the timetabling team for suitable room allocation and by the academic team for the development of new course curriculum.

Keywords:

Learning, pedagogy, flipped classroom, active, modalities, learning spaces, online learning, collaboration, innovation, teaching, students, engaged, timetabling.