This week I led the #LTHEchat and I have spent the best part of my Saturday reviewing what everyone said. It was that valuable. Thanks.
There are some key themes that came out of the chat.
As usual, when you ask people where they learn best it is rare they tell you about classrooms, lecture theatres or even institutionally provided spaces (admittedly this audience was not primarily made up of students). Equally, they do not tend to refer to other spaces by using recognisable characteristics of familiar formal spaces. Nobody suggested they preferred to be lectured at. Instead, there were common themes and anecdotes about learning outside, while walking, at home or in homely environments (e.g. cushions).
There was some discussion about offices. How people like to personalise them and have a door they can close, but also one they can keep open and inviting. Time of day came up too: either early or late in the day.
It became apparently that ‘learning’ is an inadequate word for a discussion like this. Different learning purposes or phases are critical to understanding learning space: people tended to gravitate towards the idea of learning as being a reflective matter and this is when ideas about home, gardens, woods, walking and being outside were raised.
There was also discussion about more active forms of learning and spaces.
The discussion moved towards social media as a learning space, by which point there was little need for any debate on the legitimacy of social media as an effective and appropriate conceptualisation of space. This was to be expected given this group (the #LTHEchat network).
The final question was about conceptualisations of future learning space. I was expecting more people to pick up on the idea of hybrid space. They didn’t though. With one or two exceptions, I think people were focused on a provided and constructed idea of learning space rather than a shift towards heutagogy and self-determined or self-constructed notions of space. This is to be expected as we tend to refer to what we know in the context of what we do – imagining a future that does not have our metaphorical seat firmly planted in the centre of the vision is difficult.
Next time, we should start with a vision: you no longer have a role in higher education. Why not?!
Great to be back in the #LTHEchat after several months. It just shows how hard I have been working on other things. But when it returns in May I really hope to tune in more.
Thanks everyone!
Tactile 
interesting to see that the discussion highlighted that ‘learning space’ as a term is possibly not that useful. The comment from Peter Bradley (@profpeterbrad) saying ‘you need a space that does not get in the way. Most classroooms fail in this respect from my experience’ really resonated with me and reminded me of some of the teaching/learning spaces I have tried to use with students. https://twitter.com/profpeterbrad/status/849698820137136136
Thanks Kathrine. That would be Peter Hartley who is full of gems. Yes, an interesting way of putting it, though does this suggest we can have ‘neutral’ spaces – spaces that have no bearing or effect on the experience? It could be said that by providing containers with chairs and tables in them you are already advocating a teaching philosophy (indeed I say that all the time!).
I think you might understand if I suggest a space with no walls i.e. not a room as such. But then how could/would that work? I’d like to think of the possibilities there. Actually, that is an interesting question to explore in a further blog post…
As with all things space it depends on what you are trying to do in the space. And maybe the people in the space have different needs and agendas, how can spaces enable differentiated experiences, many questions to ponder….