Learning Landscapes
The final report of the project Learning Landscapes in Higher Education was launched on 13 April 2010 at a conference held at Queen Mary University of London. Download the report at: http://learninglandscapes.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/home/
In addition to the report the project produced a series of tools as follows:
Learning Landscapes Project Tools
The Idea of the University – Reimagining Higher Education. This tool provides a framework for academics and key stakeholders to look backwards into the history of ‘the idea of the university’ when planning the development of new teaching and learning spaces. This looking backward is referred to as a process of reverse Imagineering (Holmes 2008).
Pragmatics of Place. The function of space-time management in the Learning Landscapes paradigm is to optimise the availability, quality, utilisation and cost of space for activities. This optimisation is an inherently pragmatic and multidimensional process. The tool facilitates cross-functional engagement with this optimisation process. It provides a matrix against which universities can assess and develop their space-time management capabilities.
Talking our future into being. In higher education building projects, the client is generally a multiplicity of voices with many different views on who the client is, what their requirements might be and how best to meet them. This client briefing tool offers suggestions for how conversations around key issues might be structured to balance the needs of all ‘clients’ as they collectively talk their future into being.
Campus Profiles. This tool is designed to help decision makers set priorities when considering interventions in their Estate. The tool brings together information from a variety of sources to provide a map of the university campus in the context of the university’s own vision and mission statement. The tool should ideally be used by mixed teams of those in leadership roles, including those from Estates and academics. The output is a strong visual impression of the estates performance, identifying areas for potential intervention.
Teaching With Space in Mind. Based on a research informed awareness of what constitutes effective teaching and learning in Higher Education, this tool provides a framework through which academics can create an educational brief for a teaching and learning space in a form that can be presented to space planners and architects to inform the design process.
Learning Landscape tools at: http://learninglandscapes.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/tools/About Learning Landscapes
Learning Landscapes is a national project which explores the relationship between the physical environment of universities, academic and support staff infrastructure and methods of teaching and learning.
In particular, it explores the effect the built environment of university campuses has on the dynamic between teachers, students and researchers. It promotes greater collaboration between academics and estates professionals to create better ‘learning landscapes’ for current and future generations of learners.
The University of Lincoln is leading this important national research programme, working in partnership with the universities of Glasgow, Loughborough, Queen Mary (London), Newcastle, Oxford Brookes, Reading, Warwick, Wolverhampton and York, as well as Glyndŵr University (formerly the North East Wales Institute of Higher Education). The Learning Landscapes Project Director is Professor Mike Neary, Dean of Teaching and Learning at the University of Lincoln.
The work was been funded with almost £300,000 from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) and the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW).
For further information visit the project web site, http://learninglandscapes.lincoln.ac.uk/, or contact Professor Mike Neary on mneary@lincoln.ac.uk.
