Pedagogy And Partnerships In Innovative Learning Environments

​This book examines contexts and possibilities in Aotearoa New Zealand education contexts arising from the international trend for open, flexible, innovative learning environments (ILE), specifically on the pedagogical load. The book responds to questions such as: What does it mean to teach, learn or lead in an innovative learning environment? What happens when teachers move form single cell learning spaces to open, collaborative ones? The chapters provide examples of how teaching in new spaces can be an exciting challenge for teachers and students where they try new ways of teaching and learning, and rethink the purposes of learning and the implications of societal change for learning and what is valued. Examples are drawn from pre-service teachers working in primary and secondary schools and in-service teachers learning to become professionals. The book offers insights into a variety of educational contexts where teachers and students learn and adapt to new learning spaces, and also how different teaching and learning partnerships may be conceived, and flourish. It focuses attention on a range of aspects that teachers, school leaders, and other educators, and researchers may find valuable when they embark on similar initiatives to consider issues pivotal to productive and effective innovative learning environment design, development and implementation.

This book examines contexts and possibilities in Aotearoa New Zealand education contexts arising from the international trend for open, flexible, innovative learning environments (ILE), specifically on the pedagogical load. The book responds to questions such as: What does it mean to teach, learn or lead in an innovative learning environment? What happens when teachers move form single cell learning spaces to open, collaborative ones? The chapters provide examples of how teaching in new spaces can be an exciting challenge for teachers and students where they try new ways of teaching and learning, and rethink the purposes of learning and the implications of societal change for learning and what is valued. Examples are drawn from pre-service teachers working in primary and secondary schools and in-service teachers learning to become professionals. The book offers insights into a variety of educational contexts where teachers and students learn and adapt to new learning spaces, and also how different teaching and learning partnerships may be conceived, and flourish. It focuses attention on a range of aspects that teachers, school leaders, and other educators, and researchers may find valuable when they embark on similar initiatives to consider issues pivotal to productive and effective innovative learning environment design, development and implementation.

This book traces how a new school, physically designed as a modern learning environment, has come into being in New Zealand. A key feature is how it designs its curriculum for future citizens. The book explores how flexible curriculum and assessment options support the provision of a well-balanced, coherent and future-oriented learning programme. It also illustrates how the school is implementing its vision and copes with being different from other schools which understand and embody the New Zealand Curriculum as well as the NCEA qualifications system in more traditional terms. School leaders’, teachers’ and foundation students’ thinking and perspectives about what it’s like to become a new school are highlighted and shed light on what is possible within an evolving education system.

Pedagogy is at the heart of teaching and learning. Preparing young people to become lifelong learners with a deep knowledge of subject matter and a broad set of social skills requires a better understanding of how pedagogy influences learning. Focusing on pedagogies shifts the perception of ...

In School Space and its Occupation Alterator and Deed (Eds) assemble leading authors to address the ongoing need for conceptual and methodological clarity in designing and occupying innovative learning environments.

This open access book focuses on how the design and use of innovative learning environments can evolve as teaching practices and education policies change. It addresses how these new environments are used, how teachers are adapting their practices, the challenges that these changes pose, and the effective evaluation of these changes. The book reports on emerging research in learning environments, with a particular emphasis on how teachers are transitioning from traditional classrooms to innovative learning environments. It offers a significant evidence-based global assessment of current research in this field by designers, architects, educators and policy makers. It presents twenty-five cutting-edge projects from researchers in fifteen countries. Thanks to the book’s comprehensive international perspective, which combines theory and practice in a single publication, readers will gain a wealth of new insights.

This book presents and discusses the results of the ‘Plans to Pedagogy’ (P2P) project that was implemented across 13 diverse Australian and New Zealand schools, each with a unique school context and specific learning environment issue. The project employed a participatory approach, where academic researchers partnered with school leaders and staff in each school to co-design, implement, and evaluate research targeting the school’s chosen issue. It explores and analyses the case studies from the project and discusses a range of topics, including how space can be used as a pedagogic tool, determining the affordances of learning environments to engage students, how teacher collaboration can be enhanced in flexible spaces, and how furniture influences student engagement and teacher pedagogies. It also provides school leaders with authentic examples of how research can be utilised to drive evidence-based discussions about teacher practices and student learning. Finally, it also illustrates how teachers can design and implement powerful studies that underpin better pedagogies in their schools.

This book summarises the deep level of research carried out since 2008 within the emerging, evidence-based, translational design (EBD) approach to learning environments research. This programme has been carried out by the Learning Environments Applied Research Network of the University of Melbourne, its partners and colleagues. The chapters are based on ten, 3–4 year full-time doctoral research dissertations with each chapter outlining the key findings from these studies. The book links the chapters through the lens of evidence-based design which originates from the health planning sector. The rigour of that sector is based on the well-accepted methodology of translational research used in clinical medicine for many years. In adapting that practice, translational medicine is akin to translational development. When applied to other sectors and disciplines this becomes EBD health planning, translational engineering or, in the case of evidence-based architecture, translational design. Thus educational planning becomes the translational design of learning environments. These doctoral dissertations are examples of this approach. The chapters are organised into a narrative that examines evidence-based design through three key themes. The first explores key issues in learning environments, with three chapters covering spatial literacy in pedagogical practice; engaging students in learning spaces; and re-placing classrooms through flexibility. The second theme focusses on the socio-cultural implications of learning environments exploring student identity formation; aligning learning environment affordances for effective professional development in an innovative senior secondary school; and occupying curriculum as space in the arts. The third theme investigates the design implications for learning environments with four chapters covering corridors, nooks and crannies: making space for learning; the role of the primary school library in learning; plans and pedagogies: school design as socio-spatial assemblage; and evaluating the spatial changes in a technology enabled primary years setting.