Spacious learning: A critical reflection on active learning in political science

Abstract

Active learning is often understood as students ‘doing and producing’ academic work. This approach has a tendency to promote learning as a project of dynamic knowledge acquisition rather than one of being and becoming. In this article, we propose a more capacious understanding of active learning that makes room for spacious learning. Spacious learning invites students into slower spaces that centre ‘being’ rather than rushing to do or produce. This approach treats learning as a process rather than a means to an end, allowing students time to sit with ideas and to relate them to their own lives and experiences. We then offer practical examples of invitations to spacious learning in political science, highlighting transformative everyday practices that sustain spaciousness in the classroom: micro-communities of learning, relational scaffolding for research and creative projects, and reflective writing.