Place and Space in the Design of New Learning Environments

The development of online and virtual teaching and learning environments to augment formal face-to-face environments raises questions about the way the new communication and information technologies (CITs) are being incorporated into the on-campus environment. More importantly, this development challenges the meaning of the on-campus student learning experience. The new CITs require institutions, teachers and researchers to reconsider the relationship of the physical setting to the student learning experience. This paper highlights examples of recent developments of new learning environments which have been enhanced by the contribution of educational developers at several Australian universities. It also proposes a set of pedagogically informed principles to guide the development of on-campus teaching and learning environments which may feature the use of CITs.