Emerging research shows teachers and architects perceive higher numbers of affordances for learning in innovative learning environments (ILEs) than in traditional classrooms. Yet, offering ILEs alone will not bring about significant changes to teacher practices nor students’ learning experiences. Supporting teachers to perceive and utilise spaces that offer multiple activity settings, such as afforded by ILEs, is important in eliciting pedagogical change. This research explored the development of strategies intended to support teachers to actualise the affordances of ILEs, i.e. take advantage of new learning spaces for effective teaching and learning. An innovative methodological pairing of Participatory Action Research (PAR) and Co-design was employed to explore teachers’ instructional practice development in relation to new learning spaces. The study uncovered insights into current and future practices, where teacher participants planned, enacted, and reflected upon their pedagogical strategies. It was found that empowering teachers to actualise ILE affordances involved generating communities of practice that provided them with the ‘time and space’ to collectively develop their practice.
The Australian Educational Researcher (2021)
Actualising the Affordances of Innovative Learning Environments Through Co-creating Practice Change with Teachers (abstract)
Authors: Dr Fiona Young, Dion Tuckwell and A/Prof Ben Cleveland