This document discusses distributed learning spaces in higher education. It defines distributed spaces as both physical and virtual places where learning can occur, including formal and informal settings. It discusses principles of learning space design, including different types of physical, blended, virtual, mobile, academic, personal, and outdoor learning spaces. The document argues that the traditional concept of learning only occurring in lecture rooms is being redefined as digital learning becomes more prevalent. Distributed learning spaces are seen as the future of higher education.

1. DISTRIBUTED ‘PLACES’ AND
‘SPACES’ FOR LEARNING IN
HIGHER EDUCATION
Professor Mike Keppell
Director, The Flexible Learning Institute &
Professor of Higher Education
Charles Sturt University
1

2. OVERVIEW
Distributed spaces
Assumptions
Ecological university
Principles
Diversity of spaces
Aligning with curriculum
2

3. DISTRIBUTED SPACES
Growing acceptance that learning occurs in different
‘places’
Proliferation of approaches emerging including
‘flexible’, ‘open’, ‘distance’ and ‘off-campus’ that assist
the ubiquity of learning in a wide range of
contexts (Lea & Nicholl, 2002).
Growing acceptance of life-long and life-wide
learning also have a major influence on distributed
learning spaces.
3

4. ASSUMPTIONS
Universities value and seek to enhance the skills
essential for lifelong and life wide learning,
developing graduates who will continue to develop
intellectually, professionally and socially beyond the
bounds of formal education.
Universities believe that programs, services and teaching
methods should be responsive to the diverse
cultural, social and academic needs of
students, enabling them to adapt to the demands of
university education and providing them with the
cultural capital for life success.
4

5. Barnett, R. (2011). Being a
university. New York: Routledge.
5

6. ECOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY
Global connectedness and dependence on world around
them
Instead of ‘having an impact’ on the world which can be
both positive and negative ecological universities seek
sustainability
They are self-sustainable in their multiple levels of
interactions.
They adopt a ‘care for the world’ as opposed to an
‘impact on the world’ approach (Barnett, 2011).
6

7. HIGHER EDUCATION
PRINCIPLES
Access and Equity &
Equivalence of Learning ethical obligations
Outcomes
traverses physical, blended
Student Learning Experience and virtual learning spaces.
‘place’ of learning is diverse
learning outcomes, subject,
Constructive Alignment degree program, generic
attributes
Discipline Pedagogies specific needs of disciplines
7

8. 8

9. LEARNING SPACES
9

10. LEARNING SPACES
Physical, blended or virtual ‘areas’ that:
enhance learning
that motivate learners
promote authentic learning interactions
Spaces where both teachers and students
optimize the perceived and actual
affordances of the space (Keppell &
Riddle, 2012).
10

11. Distributed Learning
Spaces
Physical Blended Virtual
Formal Informal Formal Informal
Mobile Personal Academic
Professional
Outdoor
Practice
11

12. PHYSICAL LEARNING
SPACES
12

13. 13

14. SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF
LEARNING SPACE DESIGN
The SKG project has established seven principles of
learning space design which support a collaborative and
student-centred approach to learning:
Comfort: a space which creates a physical and mental
sense of ease and well-being
Aesthetics: pleasure which includes the recognition of
symmetry, harmony, simplicity and fitness for purpose
Flow: the state of mind felt by the learner when totally
involved in the learning experience
14

15. SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF
LEARNING SPACE DESIGN
• Equity: consideration of the needs of cultural and physical
differences
• Blending: a mixture of technological and face-to-face
pedagogical resources
• Affordances: the “action possibilities” the learning
environment provides the users, including such things as
kitchens, natural light, wifi, private spaces, writing surfaces,
sofas, and so on.
• Repurposing: the potential for multiple usage of a space
(Souter, Riddle, Keppell, 2010) (http://www.skgproject.com)
15

16. ALBURY-WODONGA LEARNING
COMMONS
16

17. Comfort
Aesthetics
Flow
Equity
Blending
Affordances
Repurposing
17

18. APPLE - CUPERTINO TRAINING ROOM
18

19. WALLENBERG HALL - STANFORD
UNIVERSITY
19

20. Affordances? - Blending
20

21. Comfort
Aesthetics
Flow
Equity
Blending
Affordances
Repurposing
21

22. 22

23. MIT - STATA CENTER - EDDY SPACES
23

24. Technology-enhanced Active Learning (TEAL) Centre
Affordances - Blending
24

25. HARVARD UNIVERSITY
25

26. Discipline
Pedagogies
‘Plasma to
Chalkboard’
for Physics
Professors
26

27. Affordances
27

28. 28

29. SEVEN PRINCIPLES -
QUESTIONS
http://mike-keppell.blogspot.co.nz/2012/04/questions-to-
consider-in-learning-space.html
29

30. 30

31. 31

32. 32

33. VIRTUAL LEARNING
SPACES
33

34. VIRTUAL LEARNING SPACES
Virtual learning spaces provide unique opportunities
that are unavailable in physical learning spaces
These affordances or ‘action possibilities’ allow a
richer range of learning interactions
34

35. Formal Virtual Informal Virtual
Learning Spaces Learning Spaces
35

36. VIRTUAL SPACES
FLI Website: http://www.csu.edu.au/division/landt/flexible-
learning/
FLI Blog: http://blendedandflexiblelearning.blogspot.com/
FLI Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/FLINews
FLI Delicious: http://www.delicious.com/flexiblelearninginstitute
Design: http://blendedandflexiblelearning.wikispaces.com/home
FLI YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/FLIMedia
Slidehare: http://www.slideshare.net/mkeppell
36

37. 37

38. FACEBOOK
Online and offline worlds are clearly coexisting
Face-to-face friendships from home have been
developed and sustained through continued
online interactions
Newer online relationships have flourished at
university and developed into face-to-face
indepth relationships” (Madge, Meek, Wellens
and Hooley 2010, p. 145).
38

39. BLENDED LEARNING
SPACES
39

40. FLEXIBLE LEARNING
“Flexible learning” provides opportunities to
improve the student learning experience through
flexibility in time, pace, place (physical, virtual,
on-campus, off-campus), mode of study (print-
based, face-to-face, blended, online), teaching
approach (collaborative, independent), forms of
assessment and staffing. It may utilise a wide
range of media, environments, learning spaces and
technologies for learning and teaching.
40

41. BLENDED & FLEXIBLE
LEARNING
“Blended and flexible learning” is a design
approach that examines the relationships
between flexible learning opportunities, in
order to optimise student engagement and
equivalence in learning outcomes regardless of mode
of study (Keppell, 2010, p. 3).
41

42. MOBILE LEARNING
SPACES
42

43. MOBILE LEARNING SPACES
“Learning when mobile means that context becomes
all-important since even a simple change of
location is an invitation to revisit
learning” (ALT-J Vol 17, No.3 p.159)
43

44. MOBILE LEARNING SPACES
With its strong emphasis on learning rather than
teaching, mobile learning challenges educators to try
to understand learners’ needs.
Understanding how learning takes place
beyond the classroom, and
Intersection of education, life, work and
leisure” (Kukulska-Hulme, 2010, p.181).
44

45. ACADEMIC LEARNING
SPACES
45

46. ACADEMIC LEARNING
SPACES
Physical, blended or virtual ‘areas’ that:
enhance academic ‘work’
that motivate academic ‘work’
enable networking
Spaces where academics optimize the perceived and
actual affordances of the space.
46

47. ACADEMIC SPACES
Barnett (2011) suggests that “today’s university lives
amid multiple time-spans, and time-
speeds” (p. 74).
Constant email...
Committee meetings......
Historians who focus on the past
Researchers who may focus on the future
47

48. ACADEMIC SPACES
Universities may need
to be conscious of the
24/7 existence of
their students across
the globe, each in their
own unique time-span.
Virtual spaces
Residential students
48

49. ACADEMIC SPACES
Barnett (2011) suggests that academics may be active
in university spaces that may include:
Intellectual and discursive space which focus
on the contribution to the wider public sphere.
Epistemological space which focuses on the
“space available for academics to pursue their own
research interests” (p. 76).
49

50. ACADEMIC SPACES
Pedagogical and curricular space focuses
on the spaces available to trial new pedagogical
approaches and new curricular initiatives.
Ontological space which focuses on ‘academic
being’ which is becoming increasingly multi-faceted
beyond the research, teaching and community
commitments. In fact “the widening of
universities’ ontological spaces may bring
both peril and liberation” (p. 77).
50

51. 51

52. 52

53. 53

54. 54

55. 55

56. PERSONAL LEARNING
SPACES
56

57. PERSONAL LEARNING SPACES
Personal learning environments (PLE) integrate
formal and informal learning spaces
Customised by the individual to suit their needs
and allow them to create their own identities.
A PLE recognises ongoing learning and the need
for tools to support life-long and life-wide
learning.
57

58. CONNECTIVISM
PLE may also require new ways of learning as
knowledge has changed to networks and
ecologies (Siemens, 2006).
The implications of this change is that improved lines
of communication need to occur.
“Connectivism is the assertion that learning is
primarily a network-forming process” (p. 15).
58

59. 59

60. 60

61. 61

62. 62

63. OUTDOOR LEARNING
SPACES
63

64. OUTDOOR LEARNING SPACES
These pathways, thoroughfares
and occasional rest areas are
generally given a functional
value in traffic management
and are more often than not
developed as an after thought
in campus design. As such the
thoroughfares and rest
areas are under valued
(or not recognized) as
important spaces for teaching
and learning (Rafferty, 2012).
64

65. 65

66. 66

67. 67

68. 68

69. 69

70. 70

71. Putting it
all
together
71

72. CONCLUSION
A global revolution is taking place in tertiary education.
The traditional concept of the lecture room is being
redefined as digital and distance education
becomes the "new normal" (Mark Brown, Dominion
Post).
It is time that we begin changing our thinking about the
‘place’ of learning for both learners and staff.
We need to let go of the tradition of universities as
being a ‘singular place’ where learning and teaching
occurs.
Distributed learning spaces are the future.
72

73. FURTHER INFORMATION
SKG Report: http://
documents.skgproject.com/skg-final-
report.pdf
Book Chapter: http://
www.slideshare.net/mkeppell/
distributed-spaces-for-learning
Mike’s Blog: http://mike-
keppell.blogspot.com.au/
73

74. 74

75. 51?
The Space is
increasing
75