Coffee Cups at Hardee’s Black River Falls, Wisconsin

Designing Spaces for Teaching and Learning with Technology

Patrick DicksonLearning, Technology and Culture

(From Ed Psych to LTC: A Long Dialog)

Michigan State University

Communication between Researchers and Designers

• Basic versus Applied Research• Research versus Design• Cognition versus Art• Science versus Technology• New possibilities for tired contrasts.• Technology pervades higher education.

Rapid Change Calls for Rapid Research

• The Web Changes Many Things– Blackboard, WebCT: Unprecedented change

• Hardware– Smaller: Laptops or Desktops? Flat Panels.

• Mobility– Wireless, Longer Battery Life

• Near Universal Ownership at “Home”

Changes in Teaching:From Lecture to Team Work

• Instructional Technology Computing Committee: From hardware to pedagogy– “We can’t teach the way we’re being told to

teach in the computer labs the way they are still being built on this campus.”

• Big Ten’s CIC– Great interest in design of learning spaces

• MSU: Mid-October

Online Teaching and Learning:New Possibilities for Research

• Rapid growth in “hybrid” courses.• Students’ homes and dorms key element.• Research on students interacting online:

– “Subjects” are coding their own “data”– Discussions and chats are “self-transcribing”

• University computer learning spaces ideal for research on design.

Designing New Learning Spaces

• Leadership: Dean Who Gets It• Make Teaching and Learning Visible

– Where are the computer labs? Basements?– Windows or walls? – Incidental learning essential for rapid change.

• Flexibility, Modular, Diverse Niches

Technology Exploration CenterTechnology Exploration Center

Inner Circle

Conference Table

Workstations

Laptop Lecture Room

Laptop Lecture Room Open

Erickson 132

Library Training Room

Doctoral Students

Chicago Botanical Garden

Where Dissertations Go To Die