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The new dalek/TEAL/Active rooms

By Steve Draper,   Department of Psychology,   University of Glasgow.

Ths page collects notes on the new (2016-7) rooms in GU being trialled with new layouts, new techno, promoting more interactivity.

Layouts

layout
Wolfson seminar room 2
60
layout
Wolfson seminar room 3
60
layout
ASB 901
12
layout
ASB 902
15
layout
ASB 903
12
layout
ASB 904
15
layout
StAnd 202
30
photo
StAnd 227
60
layout
StAnd 230
30
layout
BoydOrr 213
15
layout
James Watt South room 361 (J7)
34
layout
Joseph Black room C407
50

Tips, facts about the rooms

People

Working group

Others

  • Cathy Bovill (L&TC, academic development unit)

    URLs, videos

    References (from a TEAL presentation)

    The independent issues underlying these rooms

    There are 3 quite different issues here:
    1. Active learning, regardless of technology e.g. having group discussions. Many pedagogical techniques and designs for active learning are very old, and effective. They interact, though, with what is afforded by room furniture, and by new technology. Examples include:
    2. Room capacity and layout.
      • Even with seating unfriendly to discussion (e.g. fixed seats all facing the front) group discussions are quite easy to arrange if the room is used only to about 25% capacity, or up to say 50%. The groups can space themselves so they don't interrupt each other too much; and climbing over seats to reach the middle is OK.
      • These problems are not solved in the current "dalek" rooms (e.g Wolfson sem-3) with individually movable chairs, when used with as many chairs as there would be with fixed chairs. Staff report that if the room is near capacity, then latecomers cannot get from the door to the empty chairs: just as in a lecture theatre. And presumably, even if all seated, then groups will be too close to each other to hear their own group without inteference from talk from other groups.
      • Wider row spacing. Jim Boyle at Strathclyde (MechEng.) had a 100 seat lecture theatre full (room M406, James Weir Building); but the seats were arranged in groups of 4 in a shallow arc to allow discussion between 4 sitting in a row. It has a slightly wider row spacing allowing the same students to sit together each time, regardless of who arrives first.
      • Large round tables (e.g. seating 12) are bad a) because half the people at each table cannot face the front if there is any exposition from the front; b) because those on one side are nearer the next table than to those opposite them, so they cannot hear the others in their own group.
      • Failure to build rooms suited for discussion is an old failing in HEIs: as witness a book chapter on this from 50 years ago. Institutions build a few big rooms; not many small rooms, despite what is required for better teaching and learning. (?Architecture pattern book?).
      • Small staff offices prevent group discussions in offices. Given that students have similar timetables, the times they are available for tutorials are similar, so having a few group rooms that staff can book doesn't work well. Open plan offices for staff (as at Salford) prevent even 1:1 meetings with students.
    3. Technology for electronic sharing.
      • EVS /   YACRS
      • 2cc type active learning compared to doing written feedback from staff.
      • Teacher has not one but several devices up front and in use. Yacrs already tends to promote this by putting into separate windows what is projected, what the students will see on their devices a teacher-only control screen, that may show things such as how many have voted, ...
      • Sharing datasets and calculations. E.g. Simon Bates' design and use of a lab for first year physics. And sharing datasets ...

    Issues limiting progress

    Progress and productivity enhancements for learning are limited by the interaction of these key factors:

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