The present article explores the experiences of two international graduate students who studied in the United States and how they dealt with the challenges of living in a new country. The researcher was inspired by Bhabha's (1994) third space theory and aimed to investigate how these students tried to create a space for themselves in the classroom…

Instruction based on active learning is being promoted in higher education by the creation of new collaborative teaching and learning spaces, but capacity does not yet exist for all courses to be held in these new spaces. In this study, we examined how students choose between sections of the same course, with the same materials and techniques used…

Recent years have witnessed the spread of purpose-built active learning classrooms throughout the higher education sector. While these innovative learning spaces are well-suited for a variety of active learning strategies, their lack of a single focal point means they are inconvenient spaces for lecturing. While educational developers often…

In this article I explore how certain pedagogic practices construct students' ability as visible. The concept of ability is viewed as constructed, put into place by specific educational practices, rather than a fixed trait of the students. Conducted in two primary classrooms, this study employs observational methods complemented by audio-video…

This article addresses schoolteachers' spatial work in the process of inhabiting and using a new school building. The study focuses on a historical case of a Danish open-plan school built in the early 1970s and shows how the teachers' spatial work engages with questions of the organisation of bodies, sound, furniture and teaching aids. The article…

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…

One of the most important names in the history of classical music is the Flemish-born German composer and pianist Ludwig van Beethoven. Op.57 No.23 "Appassionata", composed by the composer, one of the Viennese classics, in the second period of his musical life, which was divided into three, is a magnificent work that takes a different…

This paper is based on an argument that the disruption of school spaces can demerit the myth that Mathematics is difficult and a struggle for learners in some contexts. Combining spatial theories and the phenomenon of disruption, the paper reports from a qualitative research project that analyzed the dynamics of space and place in South African…

This article seeks to examine the neglected sociomateriality of the classroom and investigates how space, matter and human actors are entangled, interact and take part in the 'space-producing action'. Rather than approaching the classroom as an objective collection of physical units or a stable grid, we see it as something alive, a performance…

This classroom technology pilot explored the ways in which three different tools yielded insights into instructors' and students' use of physical classroom space in a higher education environment. The tools of interest were a ceiling heatmap camera from Panasonic, small ultrawideband movement trackers from Pozyx, and an audio sensor from TSI. The…

Social studies have often been explored as dis-embodied which results in a limited view of what happens in the classroom. Based in Dewey's transactional view of embodied relationality, Todd's discussion on the liminality of pedagogical relationships and recent theoretical contributions into embodied learning and body pedagogics, the purpose is to…

An historical commitment to child-centred pedagogy notwithstanding, classrooms for an increasing diversity of young people are constituted by their constrained affordances for learning; a single teacher, configurations of tables and chairs, and digital resources. The remit of teaching in such confines perpetuates passivity, a one size fits all…

Ball State University re-designed five classrooms--as part of an Interactive Learning Space (ILS) Initiative--to provide educators with learning spaces that could be used to implement and assess the effectiveness of student-centred instructional practices. The purpose of the current investigation was to explore how pedagogy implemented within ILSs…

In this article, we argue that physical rooms cannot be replaced by virtual space without literally losing the student's body and that experimenting with rooms and active learning is imperative for improving and advancing students' learning. Our case study offers insight into a 'soft room experiment' without hard furniture or audio-visual…

This participatory design-based research study addresses the relational character of the physical learning environment and pedagogical practice in the context of a design project carried out at a Swedish upper secondary school. Three teachers initiated the project with the intent to introduce student centred pedagogy and increase active learning.…