Learning Spaces

One of the areas that came up in the faculty satisfaction survey was about updating classroom learning spaces. So I invited Lori McCracken, Manager of Learning Spaces, who works with Teaching & Learning with Technology (TLT), to come to campus to help us start a conversation about where we are and where we might go from here.

Lori was incredibly gracious and spent a good deal of time talking with us in a pre-visit phone call about our situation and intentions for her visit. We were able to come up with a schedule that I hope was useful as a starting point for us!

  • Meeting with Barb Eshbach and our IT Director, Loren Brewster about library renovations for informal and formal learning spaces in the library, including a possible innovation classroom, one-button studio, and upgrades to library instruction/programming spaces.
  • Informal lunch conversation with 2 faculty champions – Jen Nesbitt (Engl) and Amber Seidel (HDFS), both of whom are interested in a flexible classroom learning space in which students can move from computer work to group and classroom work within the same space
  • Faculty session in which Lori presented some ideas for cutting edge classroom design as well as led a conversation about what our faculty would like to see in our local classroom design
  • Tour of existing classroom spaces with some low-cost suggestions for improvements
  • Debrief session on next steps with Loren Brewster and Joe Royer which included a conversation about a possible new collaboration space in the existing computer lab associated with the IT Help Desk.

There are some current projects underway – the new Kines classroom in the renovation of the gym, a re-model of the large lecture hall, and installation and consolidation of the media commons equipment to include a one-button studio, and the design of a flexible classroom set-up as one classroom option.

Lori’s input and expertise were incredibly helpful, and we hope to have an on-going relationship with her as we are able to move forward with local projects!

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