What Does Teaching and Learning Look like in a Variety of Classroom Spatial Environments?

Abstract

The very nature of what constitutes an effective learning environment is undergoing substantial re-imagination. Authors have suggested that the affordances of existing learning spaces, often termed conventional or traditional classrooms, is limited and constrains the possible pedagogies available to teachers. Architects, authors and governments have put forward innovative learning environments (ILEs) as a better alternative. ILEs provide affordances thought to be somewhat better at providing to students learning needs than traditional classrooms, particularly in terms of creative and critical thinking, and collaborative and communicative workers. However, there is little evidence available to show of either spatial type (traditional classroom or ILE) performs pedagogically to either hinder or support the desired approach/es to teaching and learning being sought by current educational policies. One could suggest that a populistic narrative often drives the growing investment in new school learning spaces, facilitated by a vacuum of credible evidence of their impact. This paper will report findings from a three-year study that tracked the practices over time of secondary school Engineering, Mathematics and Science teachers (n 23) as they occupied two quite dissimilar spatial layouts. The Linking Pedagogy, Technology, and Space (LPTS) observational metric, with its provision of instantaneous quantitative visual analysis, was used to track their practice, and student learning, in a variety of spatial layouts. Subsequent analysis identified broad trends within the data to identify those factors, spatial, subject or confounding teacher factors, which influenced student and teacher activities and behaviours. Importantly, it presented new evidence that works against the current, overt focus on contemporary spatial design. It suggests that greater emphasis on unpacking, and then developing, the mediating influence of teacher spatial competency (how, when and why one uses the given affordances of space for pedagogical gain) is required for any space to performance pedagogically.