Overview

Contact Information

Request Service

About Us

Office of Information Technology (OIT) > Research and Evaluation Services > Selected Research > Learning Environments Research

Learning Environments Research

Introduction

During the past few years at the University of Minnesota, we have seen innovation, growth, and advancements on campus in the form of Active Learning Classrooms (ALCs), a new Science Teaching and Student Services building, the SMART learning commons, and newly-designed student study spaces and lounges. OIT's Research and Evaluation team has partnered with faculty and staff from across the U of M to conduct systematic research on these spaces, centered on the question: To what extent do formal and informal learning environments shape teaching and learning?

Pilot research: Student and faculty reactions

Exploratory research into the impact of ALCs began in August 2007. These investigations, which were funded by the Archibald Bush Foundation and conducted in collaboration with the Office of Classroom Management, showed that:

faculty teaching in new learning spaces and students learning in them both had strongly positive attitudes toward the spaces at the end of the term;
both faculty and students perceived reduced psychological distance between faculty and students, and among students;
the round tables in the ALCs were singled out as especially important to the impact of the rooms on teaching and learning.

Read more about the pilot research at Transform--SoTL at the University of Minnesota.

Comparison studies: Student learning outcomes and faculty behavior

Later, more formal research combined quantitative and qualitative research designs and data collection methods to study both formal and informal learning spaces. Research on the formal learning environments involved course grade data as well as data collected using a class observation form, a student survey, an instructor interview, and student focus groups. The informal environments research used data gathered by means of student focus groups, student assignment logs, and photo surveys.

This investigation has yielded the following findings:

students taking classes in the ALCs exceeded final grade expectations relative to their ACT scores, suggesting strongly that features of the spaces contributed significantly to their learning;
different learning environments affect teaching-learning activities even when instructors attempt to hold these activities constant;
in their choices of informal study spaces, students fall into routines early and are reluctant to deviate from them even if they are not meeting their study goals;and
assignment types greatly impact the study environments that students select.

The faculty experience: Role-differentiated responses to ALCs

In 2011, staff from OIT, OCM, the Center for Teaching and Learning, the Office of Measurement Services, and the Office of Institutional Research convened a group to study the impact of the new Science Teaching and Student Services (STSS) building and its 15 ALCs on teaching and learning at the University. In spring 2012, the group undertook a study of role-differentiated responses to ALCs, using large-scale surveys of students and faculty in 21 classes, along with systematic class observations and focus groups, to assess reactions to and perceptions of classes taught in the ALCs.

The following are key findings from this investigation:

Both students and faculty rated the ALCs very high in terms of engagement, enrichment, flexibility, effective use, and course-room fit, but the faculty numbers were even more positive than the student responses.
Both faculty and students were sanguine about students’ ability to focus on a source of information; to identify who is speaking in class; and to follow what is happening in class.
Students responded positively to the ALCs whether they had prior experience or not; no matter whether they were male or female; no matter whether they were younger or older.
Science faculty were noticeably more enthusiastic about the ALCs than either their students or their non-science faculty colleagues were.

A total of 8 variables measuring student-centered, collaborative learning activities were observed in 4 selected ALC classes and also asked about on the student and faculty surveys, with the following results:

Faculty and students reported similar frequencies of these activities in their classes, and their reports were quite close to the observed quantities.
Overall, these learning activities occurred with moderately high frequency in the ALCs, at the “two or three times per month” level or more often.
In focus groups, both faculty and students emphasized the ease of conducting collaborative learning activities in the ALCs, and the usefulness of the round tables along with the multiple whiteboards and display screens in doing so. This contrasted with the awkwardness of lecturing in ALCs, which they felt was due to the lack of a central focus point in ALCs.

Future directions

Research into the impact of ALCs on teaching and learning continues during the 2012-2013 academic year, including

an experiment in which a 350-person introductory chemistry class will move from a large lecture-hall format to a hybrid structure in fall 2012, with students doing significant work online and then meeting with the instructor in an ALC once a week.
a study of innovative pedagogy in ALCs, trying to determine what teaching methods and activities best leverage the unique layout and technology in the ALCs.

Further, the OIT Research & Evaluation team is currently editing a volume of New Directions for Teaching and Learning (Volume 137, 2014) that will explore the history, current research and best teaching practices in active learning spaces.

For researchers: our learning space data collection instruments are licensed under a licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. This means they are available free of charge to members of the academic community who wish to use them, in whole or in part, in their own research. Please simply email J.D. Walker to let us know about your plans, and please give credit in an appropriate place in your work to the Research & Evaluation Team, OIT, University of Minnesota.

Professional Articles

Presentations

The Consequences of Pedagogy and Space (PDF) (November 2011)

Project Reports