Learning Landscapes

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).

1.1 Beyond vision & missions
1.2 Open spaces: How the exercise works
1.3 "Ideal Types"
1.4 The medieval university: The birth of an idea
1.5 Liberal university - Research & teaching
1.6 Industrial University: Big science - really useful knowledge
1.7 Post modern University: radical & democratised
1.8 Entrepreneurial university

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. The illustrated case studies below provide concrete examples of the matrix in action, explaining novel analytical and communication methods and techniques which have been applied in real university decision-making.

2.1. Enhanced measurement and communication of space-time utilisation

2.2. Extracting actionable estates intelligence from the National Student Survey

2.3. Activity-based measurement of space performance and cost

Pragmatics of place presentation

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.

3.1 The power of discourse
3.2 Who is the client?
3.3 Making the journey
3.4 Managing expectations
3.5 Involving everyone
3.6 Getting the brief right
3.7 Determining value for money
3.8 Understanding return on investment
3.9 Developing the brief in layers
3.10 The future is now

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.

See the tool

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.

5.1 Teaching with space in mind. Introduction
5.2 Student as producer: Collaborative and engaged teaching- supporting a paradigm shift
5.3 Critical Pedagogy: Diversity, Difference and Dissensus - space as social science
5.4 Reward and Recognition: Student Feedback and Assessment- encouraging intellectual engagement
5.5 Solidarity: Student Leadership - students supporting and servicing teaching and learning
5.6 Academic Commons: Technology and the classroom - open networked and connected
5.7 Learning from each other: the scholarship of teaching and learning - evaluation plus research