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The 21st Century Classroom
Incubating Next-Gen.Edu
6/1/2008
Great ideas for teaching and learning come from faculty, students--even other schools. Here's how two universities are bringing those ideas together in special classrooms, for campuswide impact in the years ahead.
Given a blank slate, what should the
21st century college classroom look like, and
how should it be operated? Answering
those questions is the idea behind setting
up "incubator classrooms," spaces dedicated
to trying out new technologies and new
ways of teaching and learning. By incubating
new ideas, faculty members and IT staff discover which
teaching approaches and tools work best, before they're
rolled out more broadly across campus.
Two newly launched initiatives--one at a large public university and the other at a smaller, private institution--demonstrate the unique journey incubator spaces take from conception to setup and use, even when they've been designed with similar goals. In both cases profiled here, many of the actual trappings are almost laundry-list: flexible seating and tables, portable computing devices that can be stashed away, broadband connectivity, collaboration software, interactive whiteboards, and easily viewed displays. But the details vary regarding evolution of design, technology assessment and choices, and space usage.
An Evolutionary Approach
The 17,000-student University of California-Riverside, east of Los Angeles, is no stranger to experimental instruction. It started with smart classrooms, which were introduced five to six years ago when the campus began a four-year, million-dollar upgrade for all 80 general assignment classrooms, recalls Leo Schouest, manager of academic computing. "We standardized all technology to a certain level. It didn't matter what room you walked into: the VCR, the panel, the computer were all the same," he says.
UC-Riverside's Hyperstruction Studio provides an environment where everyone is engaged with everyone else. Students may be looking in different directions, but the information is following the student, not vice-versa.
Then, two years ago, working closely with the Office of Undergraduate Education and the Registrar, the school developed a plan to upgrade three rooms with technology above and beyond the smart room standard. Called "flex classrooms," the spaces employed wraparound whiteboards, movable tables and chairs, and dual projection systems with multiple points of control. But the initiative has evolved further, with the development of the school's first Hyperstruction Studio, which debuted its first class at the end of January 2008. As the website for the new space explains, "The Hyperstruction Studio allows faculty to explore innovative pedagogies and thus create a campus ‘road map' as UCR considers how to best enhance teaching and learning in the years ahead."
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