Exploring Informal Learning Space In The University

Growing student numbers, increased student expectations, new approaches to learning, and fast-paced technological advances all contribute to the need for universities to take a more strategic approach to their buildings, including formal and informal learning spaces. Exploring Informal Learning Space in the University addresses the issue of informal learning space from the perspectives of a comprehensive range of stakeholders, including students, academics, facilities managers, university managers, IT managers, architects, interior designers, and librarians. With contributions from a range of experts, practitioners and academics around the world, this book uses a combination of case studies and theoretical discussion to explore the rationale and theory of informal learning space alongside the practicalities of its planning, development and utilization. The volume is at once ambitious and pragmatic, combining innovative thinking with a firm awareness of practicalities, including the varied constraints faced by universities and the need to work in tandem with broader strategies. Advocating broad collaboration at both planning and delivery stage, the result is essential reading for anyone involved in the delivery of learning space provision – from architects and designers, to university managers and strategists. It will also be of particular interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students engaged in the study of library & information science or higher education policy and strategy.

In particular, we were interested in how students write their research papers and what services, resources, and facilities would be most useful to them. The information collected in this study would guide the libraries' efforts to improve library facilities, reference outreach, and the libraries' Web presence. - Introduction.

El espacio, ya sea físico o virtual, puede tener un impacto significativo en el aprendizaje. Learning Spaces se centra en la forma en que las expectativas de los alumnos influyen en dichos espacios, en los principios y actividades que facilitan el aprendizaje y en el papel de la tecnología desde la perspectiva de quienes crean los entornos de aprendizaje: profesores, tecnólogos del aprendizaje, bibliotecarios y administradores. La tecnología de la información ha aportado capacidades únicas a los espacios de aprendizaje, ya sea estimulando una mayor interacción mediante el uso de herramientas de colaboración, videoconferencias con expertos internacionales o abriendo mundos virtuales para la exploración. Este libro representa una exploración continua a medida que unimos el espacio, la tecnología y la pedagogía para asegurar el éxito de los estudiantes.

This book offers new ways of investigating relationships between learning and the spaces in which it takes place. It suggests that we need to understand more about the distinctiveness of teaching and learning in post-compulsory education, and what it is that matters about the design of its spaces. Starting from contemporary educational and architectural theories, it suggests alternative conceptual frameworks and methods that can help map the social and spatial practices of education in universities and colleges; so as to enhance the architecture of post-compulsory education.

Informal Learning in Youth Work offers fresh perspectives on all aspects of informal education in the youth work setting. Designed to develop the reader′s knowledge and skills, this comprehensive textbook explores key issues such as communication, power relations, ethics, gender exclusion, sexuality, race discrimination and social class. The author places particular emphasis on conversation as a key means of promoting informal learning and engaging effectively with young people. Other key features include: " case studies that illustrate the application of theory to `real-life′ practice " an emphasis on critical reflection, including reflective questions " an easily accessible style, with key terms and tips for further reading " a four-part structure guiding the reader through different stages of conversations and relationships in informal education. Informal Learning in Youth Work provides a unique combination of theoretical analysis and practice tips. Satisfying training and course requirements in the area, it will be essential reading for all students on youth and community work courses, as well as those in allied fields such as education and social work. It will also be a valuable reference for practitioners working with young people on a daily basis.

Contemporary educational practices and policies across the world are heeding the calls of Wall Street for more corporate control, privatization, and standardized accountability. There are definite shifts and movements towards more capitalist interventions of efficiency and an adherence to market fundamentalist values within the sphere of public education. In many cases, educational policies are created to uphold and serve particular social, political, and economic ends. Schools, in a sense, have been tools to reproduce hierarchical, authoritarian, and hyper-individualistic models of social order. From the industrial era to our recent expansion of the knowledge economy, education has been at the forefront of manufacturing and exploiting particular populations within our society. The important news is that emancipatory educational practices are emerging. Many are emanating outside the constraints of our dominant institutions and are influenced by more participatory and collective actions. In many cases, these alternatives have been undervalued or even excluded within the educational research. From an international perspective, some of these radical informal learning spaces are seen as a threat by many failed states and corporate entities. Out of the Ruins sets out to explore and discuss the emergence of alternative learning spaces that directly challenge the pairing of public education with particular dominant capitalist and statist structures. The authors construct philosophical, political, economic and social arguments that focus on radical informal learning as a way to contest efforts to commodify and privatize our everyday educational experiences. The major themes include the politics of learning in our formal settings, constructing new theories on our informal practices, collective examples of how radical informal learning practices and experiences operate, and how individuals and collectives struggle to share these narratives within and outside of institutions. Contributors include David Gabbard, Rhiannon Firth, Andrew Robinson, Farhang Rouhani, Petar Jandrić, Ana Kuzmanić, Sarah Amsler, Dana Williams, Andre Pusey, Jeff Shantz, Sandra Jeppesen, Joanna Adamiak, Erin Dyke, Eli Meyerhoff, David I. Backer, Matthew Bissen, Jacques Laroche, Aleksandra Perisic, and Jason Wozniak.

This book has two purposes: To open up the debate on the role of informal education in schooling systems and to suggest the kind of school organizational environment that can best facilitate the recognition of informal learning. Successive chapters explore what is often seen as a duality between informal and formal learning. This duality is particularly so because education systems expend so much time and effort in certifying formal knowledge often expressed in school subjects reflecting academic disciplines.Recognizing the contribution informal learning can make to young people’s understanding and development does not negate the importance of valued social knowledge: That complements it. Students come to school with knowledge learnt from their families, peers, the community and both traditional and social media. They should not have to "unlearn" this in order to enter the world of formal learning. Rather, students’ different learning "worlds" should be integrated so that each informs the other. In a knowledge-based society, all learning needs to be valued. Some contributors to this book reflect on how new educational systems could be created in a move away from top-down authoritarian and bureaucratic management. Such open systems are seen to be more welcoming in acknowledging the importance of informal learning. Others provide practical examples of how informal learning is currently recognized. Some attention is also paid to the evaluation of informal learning. A key objective of the work presented here is to stimulate debate about the role of informal learning in knowledge-based societies and to stimulate thinking about the kind of reforms needed to create more open and more democratic school learning environments.

This open access book contains observations, outlines, and analyses of educational robotics methodologies and activities, and developments in the field of educational robotics emerging from the findings presented at FabLearn Italy 2019, the international conference that brought together researchers, teachers, educators and practitioners to discuss the principles of Making and educational robotics in formal, non-formal and informal education. The editors’ analysis of these extended versions of papers presented at FabLearn Italy 2019 highlight the latest findings on learning models based on Making and educational robotics. The authors investigate how innovative educational tools and methodologies can support a novel, more effective and more inclusive learner-centered approach to education. The following key topics are the focus of discussion: Makerspaces and Fab Labs in schools, a maker approach to teaching and learning; laboratory teaching and the maker approach, models, methods and instruments; curricular and non-curricular robotics in formal, non-formal and informal education; social and assistive robotics in education; the effect of innovative spaces and learning environments on the innovation of teaching, good practices and pilot projects.