Join us on December 1 for the 4th in our series of Reports from the Spring 2016 LSC Roundtables. The focus of this webinar is on renovations that transform the learning experience, preparing students to become entrepreneurs & innovators, creative & and visionary scientific leaders, risk-taking problem-solvers in the world they enter upon graduation.
In this webinar we tell two stories from the roundtables, focusing on questions asked and addressed in the planning process—questions driving the renovation of a townhouse for an innovation center at Virginia Commonwealth University and the renovation and addition to spaces for STEM learning at Carthage College.
Although these projects were quite different in purpose, their questions are not too different. This signals the growing awareness of how the changing context demands new kinds of questions, perhaps the recalibrating of the relationship between academics and architects in the process of planning. Indeed, the subtitle of this webinar might be 21st century questions from and for 21st century clients.
v Carthage College - Straz Center for Modernization and Expansion of Spaces for STEM Learning & Research
• How do we support unstructured learning and “pop-up” learning communities in our new space?
• How can we establish opportunities for more informal whiteboard moments between students and faculty outside the classroom? That is, how do we make the creative origins of science visible and present in our spaces?
• How can we bring attention to our student project teams for the opportunities for collaborative activities with industry, government, and academic colleagues across the country?
v Virginia Commonwealth University - Da Vinci Center for Innovation
• A T-shaped individual is one anchored in a discipline, with the capacity and openness to span across disciplines. How can learning and the spaces for learning ensure our students become Y-shaped individuals by graduation?
• Current trends in higher education value a culture of openness and sharing in the academic environment. What can our learning spaces do to promote strategic partnership between students from different backgrounds and disciplines to push learning beyond the boundaries of a classroom?
• How can architectural identity help champion a program? Can a new space be a catalyst not only for new ideas, but also for new programs and curriculum?
These are questions critical in the context of planning renovations and additions. These are also questions that should be embedded in addressing broader institutional strategic initiatives—signaling the value of attention to the LSC yardstick for planning. These institutional stories capture the essence of the roundtable experience: an occasion for academics and architects to become a team of planners exploring into the future, enjoying the adventure of seeking, identifying questions that challenge both academics and architects to keep asking “what if?”; “why not?”; and “why?”
♦ We invite your attention to The Creative Mind, a “think-piece” now posted on the LSC homepage, that describes the nature of creative people, considering it as a prompt for reflections of a planning team about what they should become, what their students should become. Those participating in the 2016 Spring LSC Roundtables were not observing the obvious order and rules…. They enjoy living in a world that is filled with unanswered questions and blurry boundaries.
More roundtable stories to come.
♦ We also invite your attention to another 21st century report: The Engagement Gap: Making Each School and Every Classroom an All-Engaging Learning Environment. It puts the spotlight on a question increasingly addressed by those responsible for the quality and character of undergraduate learning spaces. What do we know about how learning is happening now in the school just down the street? If learning spaces are bridges to the future—they are bridges into and beyond the undergraduate setting.
Be in touch with any questions.
Jeanne
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Jeanne L. Narum
The Independent Colleges Office, Director
Learning Spaces Collaboratory, Principal
D: (202) 256-8872