Spaces and Places for Connection in the Postdigital University

Abstract

This study focuses on the spaces and places for learning and teaching connections in higher education. Using a photovoice research method, we ask: what role do spaces and places play in offering opportunities for learning and teaching connection, and what do they tell us about the evolving practices of teachers in contemporary higher education? Whilst considerable attention has been paid to the learning spaces of students, we argue that less attention has been devoted to the spaces in which educators learn. Our findings are considered against a backdrop of the ongoing disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic, meaning that opportunities for interaction have assumed even greater significance, and the ways in which we use and understand teaching spaces are in flux. As such, our data highlights how the move to digital and hybrid learning is blurring the boundaries of spaces and places, reorienting what it means to teach and to learn in a postdigital higher education landscape. We engage sociomaterial and spatial concepts to examine how spaces entangle with university teachers’ experiences, and we explore the shifting nature of interaction and space in post-pandemic times.