Non-traditional learning spaces have been a trending topic and investment opportunity during the last decade. Ostensibly their novel material settings promote active and flexible learning. This article traces the furniture layouts utilized in curricular teaching during three semesters across the first five years of use of an 80-seat…

We explored how furnishings and technology impact pedagogical agility and student engagement across three flexible learning spaces. We collected various kinds of data from faculty and students teaching and learning in multiple classrooms, such as focus group interviews with students, faculty responses to reflection prompts, and pre- and…

Despite trending investment in active learning infrastructure to support student learning, inclusion, and career preparedness, few universities have achieved the orchestration of campus stakeholders and pedagogical reform "at scale." This article presents a process-oriented model for developing faculty and students for success in these…

What happens when campus units come together to create both a shared physical space and a shared mission space? This case study highlights a unique cross-campus partnership between the UCLA Science Libraries and two academic support programs to create a STEM Collaborative Learning Center. This space serves to help decrease achievement gaps in STEM…

During this research, the author attempted to locate institutions and background information about spaces that would be similar in scope to a digital scholarship lab (or scholar's lab being proposed in a university library. The information is meant to serve as a guide for the space design project, but it will be an important benchmarking tool for…

Funded by the Association of College & Research Libraries through a 2018 Academic Library Impact Research Grant, the Activating Library Classrooms: Evaluating Formal Learning Spaces for Active Learning and Student Engagement project endeavored to evaluate the design and use of formal learning spaces situated within Penn State University…

Universities are investing considerable funds in designing and building innovative learning spaces without knowing the positive impact on student learning and their achievement of employability skills for the 21st century. There is a possibility of designing these new generation learning spaces to enable active and deep learning approaches to be…

The physical space of campus may influence student belonging. Quantitative data were collected using a bespoke questionnaire among a diverse group of students at a post-92 UK university. A total of 635 students, primarily female, undergraduate and of diverse ethnicity participated. Overall sense of belonging and agreement that campus space was…

This article examines a preliminary approach to space design developed and implemented in Eastern Kentucky University's Noel Studio for Academic Creativity. The approach discussed here is entitled "hot spots," which has allowed the research team to observe trends in space usage and composing activities among students. This approach has…

This study investigates the role of space, material, and affect in undergraduate and graduate students' lived experiences within an open Future Learning Space. Future Learning Spaces (FLSs) blend the latest in architectural advances for space design (e.g., modern, flexible furniture within collaborative environments that provide…

This multiple case study (Flyvbjerg, 2011; Stake, 2006) of three new rural high school libraries, located in two states in the U.S. Midwest, and the school communities they serve is part of a long-term research agenda grounded in a critical perspective (Anderson, 1989). The study is devoted to deepening the understanding of the relationships…

This study highlights the impact of including stakeholders with expertise in learning theory in a learning space design process. We present the decision-making process during the design of the Krause Innovation Studio on the campus of the Pennsylvania State University to draw a distinction between the architect and faculty member's decision-making…

This article describes the design of informal learning spaces at an Australian university that support students in the generation of knowledge. Recent learning space design projects at La Trobe have been informed by a number of pre-existing projects, including a small research project on student use of technologies, a national project on learning…

Even though students are not using the print collection, they still choose to go to the library for academic pursuits. The continuing preferences of students for library space can be examined in the light of a hierarchy of needs made up of layers of access and linkages, of uses and activities, of sociability, and of comfort and image. A space…

Learning spaces are mission-critical for colleges and universities. Yet institutions lack a commonly accepted set of standards for learning spaces, lack a way to measure how well they work through a third-party certification, and lack a substantive way to compare their spaces to peer and aspirant institutions. Inspired by the success of…