Mapping next generation learning spaces as a designed quality enhancement process

Abstract

The learning spaces of higher education are changing with collaborative, agile and technology-enabled spaces ever more popular. Despite the massive investment required to create these new spaces, current quality systems are poorly placed to account for the value they create. Such learning spaces are typically popular with students but the impact they have on learning outcomes is difficult to capture. Taking a design-research approach, this paper presents a way of assessing the value of learning spaces in context through systematically mapping the expectations reified in their designs. While presenting a series of specific tools that support this mapping exercise, this paper also contributes to a larger conversation about the sorts of tools and processes the academic community might use in accounting for the quality of its work.

Keywords:

• Design thinking
• visible decision-making
• next generation learning spaces
• expansive learning
• conjecture mapping, higher education, quality

Acknowledgments

This paper develops, in part, from research funded by the Australian Government’s Office of Learning and Teaching. The first author also wishes to acknowledge the ongoing contributions of Linda Leonard on things psychological.