Final Thoughts

My time here in Australia is coming to an end. I have seen, and learned, a vast amount about the design, development and pedagogic value of learning and teaching spaces. Some of the things I experienced were confirmation, but much of it was new, stimulating and, more importantly, thought provoking.
I visited eight universities, two schools and several project meetings at varying stages of progress. I attended a PhD presentation which was stimulating (see Ken Goodman's comments) and have found the hosts welcoming and, more importantly, open to hear another opinion about spaces that they have developed (not always complimentary). I visited a furniture manufacturer to inspect the furniture being built for a project and discovered the importance of such a visit. I explored Melbourne and its suburbs and found learning spaces in the most unexpected locations.
I gave a presentation to an audience with a wide interest in the area of learning and teaching space design and received great feedback. They may have been being polite!
I am expected, as part of my funding, to present my findings at relevant conferences and write a paper for appropriate journals, but I think it only fair to those who have followed this blog over the last four weeks to write here the main things learned from my experience.
I think there are 6 stages to the design and delivery of learning and teaching spaces.
1. The idea- The concept stage
2. The brief- What does the client want (Who is the client?)
3. Design-This is informed by the brief.
4. Implementation- Do what’s planned.
5. Evaluation- Rarely done. See Derek Powell’s comment.
6. Review-This is also rarely done but listed in all project evaluation processes.
I know that some will add other criteria to this list and please feel free to do so.
The raison d'être of this blog is to be a discussion place for the ideas that I know are out there.It is for those that have an interest in the design, development and improvement of learning spaces. You may be a student, academic, AV expert, planner, architect, parent, vice chancellor, tax payer etc. If you want to contribute please do so.

Re-visiting Evaluation of Learning Spaces

Today I had a very interesting meeting about the evaluation of learning spaces with Jo Dane Associate Senior Consultant-Education of Woods Bagot, who is doing a post graduate degree about this subject supervised by Peter Jamieson.
We discussed what evaluation is and how to achieve it.  We agreed that if we are to be able to evaluate the success of a learning space  it has to be about more than exam results, it should  also be about behavioural change and experience.
Some of the methods used could be focus groups, surveys, observations, and mapping. The critical thing is that any data is meaningful and ideally a longitudinal study should be conducted, of course this takes resources.
There are also considerations such as how the teacher uses the space i.e. is it being used as envisaged, was any instruction given on how to get the most from the space, cultural considerations, especially in a university with a large international student population like Melbourne.
In short the evaluation of learning spaces is not a straight forward process and needs a lot of consideration.
I know Jo and Peter will have more to say on this subject.