Transforming the Instructional Landscape: Ensuring Connectivity in Classrooms
In its second year, the TIL team focused on engaging stakeholders across campus in LSM’s initiative to upgrade 174 classrooms in 23 universities across St. George Campus. To better understand what instructors and students wanted from this re-design process, The TIL team conducted a variety of design-thinking activities including long form interviews, classroom observations and feedback events. From this work TIL produced a series of Design Principles that provided guidelines for the core features of future classroom redesigns.
Fall/Winter 2018-2019
How can we design classrooms that foster connectedness?
This report presents findings derived from initiatives carried out between September 2018 and February 2019. The data collected comes through three primary avenues: long form interviews, classroom observations, and public feedback events. Additional project details and summaries of prior inquiries are provided for context.
KEY FINDINGS
Feedback collected from stakeholders highlighted the importance of connectivity in classroom environments. Connectivity is examined through five key themes, which are deeply intertwined and examined in the report:
- Interpersonal connections between students and instructors
- Physical connections between bodies and the classroom environment
- Virtual connections between classroom users and classroom technology
- Accessibility as an approach to facilitating connectivity
- Emotional stakes revealed through preceding themes and insights.
Interpersonal Connections: There are two major types of interpersonal connections that come into play in a collaborative or active learning classroom. The first is the interaction between instructors and/or teaching support staff and students. The second is interaction among students. Effectively managing these connections is the key to an enriching classroom experience.
Physical Connections: Students feel connected to a classroom when they see that its design takes their body into consideration. Furniture that does not suit a student’s body type literally and figuratively obstructs connections with the instructor, other students, and class content. Moreover, this furniture must be able to house the electronic and analog equipment on which students depend. Climate, including proper lighting and a comfortable atmosphere, is also important to support individual’s engagement and energy levels.
Virtual Connections: Virtual connections are increasingly the focal point of personal and physical connections within the classroom as well as pedagogical approaches. While many instructors recognize the value of incorporating new classroom technology into their lesson plans, these virtual connections must be reliable and consistent between classrooms in order to encourage widespread adoption.
Accessibility: The question of accessibility runs through each of the preceding four themes. Conversations with staff in Accessibility Services revealed the broad challenge of designing for accessibility: how do we create flexible classroom systems that allow all students to participate in the classroom community fully and effectively while simultaneously removing the stigma often associated with accommodation status? This entails creating spaces where accessibility needs are incorporated into the design of classroom fixtures.
Emotional Stakes: Interviews with students, staff and instructors acknowledged an ongoing presence of having emotional stakes in a space. This can include both positive and negative emotions, such as anxiety, stress, or excitement that is often felt in a classroom environment. These feelings are driven by interactions that are varied but inherent to a classroom’s functionality – from finding a seat in a large lecture hall to facilitating a class that supports a desired style of teaching.