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, 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.…

To date, learning spaces in higher education have been designed with little engagement on the part of their most important users: students and teachers. In this paper, we present the results of research carried out in a UK university. The research aimed to understand how students and teachers conceptualise learning spaces when they are given the…

Although there is considerable interest in learning spaces in higher education, the relationship between spaces and learning is complex and not well-understood. Despite challenges, such as the lack of comparability between studies, we need to learn more about the interaction of space design and learning. A crucial step towards this is the creation…

This paper addresses the role of school ground as outdoor learning resources for environmental education. The opportunities to use school ground are particularly prominent in tropical climate, where the weather permits plenty of outdoor learning activities. A study in primary schools in Jakarta explored the relationship between the spatial aspects…

Notable gains have been made in understanding the factors that influence the student experience in higher education, particularly in the area of student engagement. While tremendous effort has been focused on identifying educationally beneficial activities for students, we must also consider where these activities are occurring. In recent years…

An article in last year's "EDUCAUSE Quarterly" special issue on learning spaces reported on the results of the University of Minnesota's pilot evaluation of its high-tech, state-of-the art Active Learning Classrooms (ALCs). The next phase of research on learning environments at the University of Minnesota involved a unique partnership…