Collaborative Teaching Clusters at Carnegie Mellon University

Student and faculty needs for computer labs at Carnegie Mellon University have changed significantly in recent years to include collaborative workspace and support for multiple instructional activities during class times. The Collaborative Teaching Cluster (CTC) uses technology, furnishings, and a novel physical layout to meet these evolving needs. The CTC accommodates multiple kinds of instructional activities in one space and fosters interactions between faculty and students, group collaboration, and sharing student work.

The University of Hawai‘i at Manoa Sustainability Courtyard as a Center for Campus Engagement

The University of Hawai‘i at Manoa Sustainability Courtyard provides a venue for campus engagement to educate and increase awareness of developing solutions and/or adaptations to geopolitical and environmental challenges, particularly energy, water, and food security. Few institutions are immune to coping and addressing triple bottom line issues of energy (economy), water, food and waste management (environment), and workplace comfort and safety concerns (equity), so the limited window of time students have on university campuses is an opportunity to engage and prepare them for an uncertain future (+ education).

Designing Small Spaces

This case is useful as a model for institutions creating media labs in small spaces with a limited budget and advances a discussion of effective design among scholars, K-12 educators, a range of industries, and the corporate sector. By addressing how small spaces can function effectively for users, the author encourages representatives from these areas to design media labs in usable ways. The study begins by arguing for a user-centered approach to designing digital media labs in order to engage stakeholders in the design process. Then, the chapter explains the process of how the author engaged users while piloting several iterations of the Florida International University Digital Writing Studio, reporting what was learned about designing the space. Finally, the study investigates the usability of the Digital Writing Studio through a usability test meant to investigate the functionality of the space for collaboration among users. This case demonstrates a challenge that many must take on at a time when budgets are being cut and space is difficult to secure. Usability methods of inquiry can help create a space designed in part by stakeholders—a method that this case argues can be built into annual program assessment.

Studying Learning Spaces

The author presents a review of empirical studies of learning spaces conducted primarily in the disciplines of science education and library sciences to aid researchers in the design of future learning space assessments. The studies included a variety of perspectives, such as examinations of spaces on learning outcomes, student engagement, and pedagogy. The selections also represent varying methods, including surveys, observations, and interviews, and include both quantitative and qualitative data analysis. This review of literature suggests that learning space studies should be designed to include multiple targets and approaches, as well as innovative methods combined with traditional methods for triangulation. Learning space researchers should also strive for detailed reporting and wider dissemination of their studies for better knowledge sharing in the field.

Studio Pedagogy

This chapter establishes a studio pedagogy for space design that integrates concepts from communication, collaboration, and innovation in its approach. The model offered is derived from the experience of designing and implementing the Noel Studio for Academic Creativity that has had a campus-wide impact at Eastern Kentucky University (EKU). In this chapter, the authors discuss a rationale for a studio pedagogy, the need for a studio approach, the technological implications of space design, and the value and impact of a studio model, explaining the importance of designing student-centered spaces. The authors begin by addressing the need identified by EKU administrators and explaining the process that brought multiple voices around the same table to develop an initial and sustained support unit for program development.

Creating a Digital Support Center

On a mid-sized university campus, the library proposes a new functional digital technology support service, and Communication Across the Curriculum (CAC) proposes a new critical and rhetorical digital support service; however, the collaborative process leading to the renovation of the library basement into a digital commons that will house these two differing digital centers has revealed missing, yet fundamental, questions about the purpose and structure of both services. Though building the digital commons could provide support in all three technological literacies, functional, critical, and rhetorical (Selber, 2004), decisions about the material aspects of the renovation preceded discussions of the theoretical foundations that necessarily inform mission and purpose and that should shape the work of the two centers. As a result, the collaboration has thus far produced an emphasis on only the first layer of technological literacy: creating functional users. The primary stakeholders’ distance from the disciplinary knowledge of speaking and writing center scholarship combined with a lack of familiarity with recent trends in multiliteracy scholarship have resulted in a problematic disconnect between how the space should look and what the space should do.

Ernst & Young Leadership and Professional Development Center

This case highlights a unique program for students pursuing a graduate degree in accounting. The program’s mission is to prepare students to be effective leaders and communicators in their careers. To accomplish this mission, the program has developed a Leadership and Professional Development Center (LPDC) that uses physical, virtual, and external space to support programmatic goals through cross-disciplinary collaboration. The LPDC houses trained consultants who provide services such as feedback on written documents, mock interviews, presentation assessment, and self-awareness development. The LPDC also hosts workshops on a variety of leadership and professional development topics. Furthermore, consultants partner with faculty and professionals to provide instruction and experiential learning inside and outside the classroom. The goal of this chapter is to highlight how cross-disciplinary partnerships promote learning in physical, virtual, and external spaces. Recommendations for navigating and utilizing cross-disciplinary collaborations are provided as well as suggestions for implementation in various learning spaces.

Going Out on a Limb

Faculty and professional staff members engaged in the development, implementation, and practice of the L.E.A.F. Model of Teaching and Learning at Eastern Kentucky University in the campus’ Incubator Classroom are working to define the qualities of “the ideal classroom” with the goal of addressing optimum and innovative student learning experiences. The L.E.A.F. Model, an acronym coined by Sweet & Blythe (2010), represents what is theoretically the “Learning Environment for Academia’s Future,” weaving together current research from education, instructional design, instructional communication, technology, and pedagogy to challenge outdated compartmentalized thinking about what it means to be a teacher in the 21st century. This case therefore represents a unique cross-disciplinary approach to the invention and use of “space” to accommodate this collaborative model while recognizing the complexities of teaching and learning in a fast-changing academic environment.

Re/membering Pedagogical Spaces

Educational spaces across the world largely continue to be designed with little variance from the traditional industrial classroom model, and pedagogies seem stuck somewhere between the Sage-on-the-Stage, lecture-dominated paradigm, and the Guide-on-the-Side, in which the instructor acts primarily as an aide watching, encouraging, and monitoring students working on projects individually or in groups. Rather than “reinventing the wheel,” the authors argue for an academic environment based on the British coffee house or French café of the 18th and 19th centuries. Not only should this 21st-century classroom offer an innovative melding of space and technology but also introduce a new pedagogical model. The Meddler-in-the-Middle model repositions the teacher and students as co-facilitators in the creation and use of knowledge in an environment where bodies move seamlessly in and out of collegial collaborations filled with free-to-fail open debate.

Making Noise in the Library

In this case study, the authors describe the library’s physical and programmatic designs, focusing in particular on the Knowledge Market as the heart of student-centered learning in this new environment. They tie the library’s design and Knowledge Market programming to the Association of American Colleges and University’s (AAC&U) Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) Goals, which form the basis of Grand Valley State University’s general education program. By describing the Knowledge Market’s space and the collaborative programming offered within it by the University Libraries, Writing Center, Speech Communication Center, and other student support services, they will show how the Knowledge Market disrupts the traditional notion of the library and traditional methods of learning.