Flexibility, Simplicity, Connectivity — Spaces4Learning

Learning Space Design

The Future of Learning Environments: Flexibility, Simplicity, Connectivity

Spaces4Learning recently convened a panel of ed tech experts to discuss how technology and design can help create a better learning experience for all students — and how institutions can plan, design, and assess their own vision for the classroom of the future. Our panelists were:

• Christopher Dechter, Manager, Instructional Technology, University of Wyoming;
• Teddy Murphy, Academic Technology & AV Specialist, University of Pikeville;
• Craig Park, Director of Digital Experience Design and Associate Principal, Clark & Enersen; and
• Lisle Waldron, Manager, Multimedia & Audio Visual Services, The University of Trinidad and Tobago.

While the panelists represented a variety of backgrounds and institution types, they all agreed that the HyFlex (hybrid flexible) model — in which learners may choose to attend classes in-person or remotely and receive equitable instruction no matter what their participation mode — has become an essential part of the student experience. Here, they explain how the HyFlex trend has impacted classroom design, technology’s role in HyFlex learning, future-proofing tech-enabled classrooms, and more.

The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Spaces4Learning: What are the most significant trends in classroom design today?

Craig Park: In the last few years, really because of the pandemic, many schools have been looking at HyFlex as the future of their educational model, for a couple of reasons. One is that digital native students — the Millennials, Z, and now Alpha generations that are coming into schools — are demanding flexibility in the way that they learn and looking for that mix of online and on-campus experience. And the other is the predicted decline in enrollment in the near-term future — 2025 to 2030 — because of the demographic lack of birth rate. Campuses are adjusting their model to anticipate doing farther outreach to bring students in for an online experience, to make up for enrollment that might not be coming in locally.

Teddy Murphy: When we design our rooms, the big push is for HyFlex or hybrid. On top of students who want to be flexible in their learning, we have a lot of students who have accommodations as well. So we want to provide the same or close to the same experience for those students as the students who are in the classroom. We’re using a lot of beamforming microphones in our classrooms, we’re doing camera tracking — presets that follow the beams of the mic. Some of the faculty still like to use whiteboards, and some of our classrooms have a whiteboard on all four walls, so we have to make sure we’re capturing what they’re doing on whiteboards.

We also have a major push to begin a science-focused education here and to start building a student body that’s going to feed into our professional schools. Our lab spaces are getting ready to get a huge overhaul, and we’re trying to integrate more flexibility there. So I get to grasp what I’m going to do to be able to give an equable HyFlex experience for a lab student — that one’s going to be fairly difficult, but I’m up for a good challenge.

Lisle Waldron: The fun thing for me, coming from an out-of-the-U.S. experience, is that all of my faculty go to the same conferences as everybody else’s faculty. And then they come back to me and want everything that they’ve seen other faculty have, but I have to do that on a budget that is seven times smaller. Our exchange rate is seven to one. I have to rely on the same beamforming microphones as everyone else — but I have to literally do one-seventh of them. How we prioritize that is one of the big questions for me.

S4L: What’s the role of technology in classroom design choices?

Christopher Dechter: I’m going to throw cold water on people right now: The role of technology in classroom design is actually pretty minimal. I don’t want to be misunderstood that technology is not needed. I’m just saying most spaces are over-built and don’t need all the stuff they have in there.

I’m doing everything I can to get rid of stuff in my classrooms. I don’t need entire racks full of stuff. I don’t need data all over the room. I don’t need seven cameras and 12 projectors. None of that is useful — it has limited utility — and it gets in between the instructors and the students and their content.

Everything that I can do in a modern classroom space, I can fit inside the lectern itself and it’s invisible. I’ll be brutally honest: The people who go in to teach and learn in those spaces every day do not care about how fancy your microphones are, how many cameras you have, or any of that stuff.