On September 13, 1994, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, commonly known as the 1994 crime bill. The most far-reaching piece of criminal justice legislation Congress ever passed, the bill incentivized states to pass harsher sentencing laws and build more prisons. Among a slate of punitive and…

This developmental study explores the process and outcomes of creating an active learning classroom within a higher education setting. To support student success, institutions have increasingly redesigned their learning spaces to promote active learning. Early initiatives often aimed to facilitate collaborative learning and reduce reliance on…

Historically, classrooms have utilized stationary furniture, facing front toward a centralized instructor position, and limiting student-to-student interactions. Such classrooms often stem from design processes that tend to focus on building codes and feedback from investors, architects, and planners, which leaves little input from instructors and…

Purpose: Systematic efforts to study students' use of informal learning spaces are crucial for determining how, when and why students use such spaces. This case study provides an example of an effort to evaluate an informal learning space on the basis of students' usage of the space and the features within the space. Design/methodology/approach:…

When classroom facilities are out of date, students complain (Habaci et al., in Procedia Soc Behav Sci 64:58-64 2012, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.11.008). But, before students arrive on campus, what do they know about their classrooms? Media has changed how people acquire information; websites are second only to college tours in…

The article presents the results of a large-scale Polish project aimed at examining the quality of early childhood education and care using the SACERS research tool. Although the SACERS scale consists of 47 items, this article focuses mainly on the data concerning the assessment of space and furnishings of 140 school common rooms in terms of the…

This qualitative research study explores student perceptions of how they build relationships with faculty, including factors that facilitate or undermine these relationships. Building such relationships is an important part of mentoring. Interviews with students reveal the importance of both innovative institutional supports and faculty…

Engaging with Students as Partners (SaP) in areas of curriculum design and pedagogic consultancy is relatively well established. Here we present a case study of two recent projects at Imperial College London, a research-intensive science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) university, that have extended the SaP model to the…

This article, based on Basil Bernstein's theoretical framework, aims to contribute to the sociological analysis of the impact of space on the formation of the pedagogical practices of the teachers who teach Arts in Primary education. Data were collected using the research methods of observation and interview on a sample of 20 Art teachers in…

Australia has been the site of significant school facility design innovation during the past decade. This innovation was showcased in 2013 in a report released by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) titled "Innovative Learning Environments, Educational Research and Innovation." It featured case studies of 40…

The present educational paradigm, fundamentally unchanged since the 19th century, does not meet 21st-century educational needs. This paradigm shift must be accompanied by a strong educational architecture that fosters the skills needed for 21st-century success including creativity and cultural awareness. The present study investigates the primary…

Through a conceptual framework focused on student engagement, this article explores students' perceptions about the impact the design of learning environments has on student engagement. The current mixed-methods study was conducted at two Texas replacement elementary schools where the entire learning community, all teachers, administrators, staff,…

Background: The vocal demand on teachers may predispose them to vocal difficulties. This concern is exacerbated by unfavourable classroom acoustics and a large number of learners in a classroom in developing countries such as South Africa. There is a dearth of classroom acoustic protocols in South Africa, which intensifies the effect of noise on…

Situative theories of learning challenge the notion of learning as a singular cognitive pursuit. However, the relations between the designed environment and situated learning activity are not well theorised, and this increases the difficulty of designing future learning spaces to accommodate learning communities supported by a range of digital…

This exploratory case study examined the kinds of activity that a 'deskless school" (i.e., flexible physical school spaces) engenders among pupils and teachers. We also considered the meaning and significance that pupils and teachers attach to various features of the school, as well as the associated action possibilities. The data were…