A bold title? Not when you’re talking about the Smith Learning Theater. In Gary Natriello’s words, it “underscores our commitment to producing unconventionally collaborative, custom-designed, authentic learning experiences that are playful, valuable, and inspiring.”
I’m grateful to have played a role in bringing this space into existence for the past 3 years. I’m excited to see how educators and educational researchers use it.
It’s truly an innovative space, combining five distinct data networks (supported by over twenty miles of fiberoptic and copper cabling) with a flexible ceiling grid, geo-spatial tracking system, and video broadcast-ready AV system packed into a 6,600 sq. ft. event space.
You might think it was designed from the ground up for learning in the Experience Age.
Check out the Library’s Rhizr for event highlights and more information.
If you had a high school gymnasium, how would you turn it into a technology-friendly space for teaching, learning, and research?
As part of the Gottesman Libraries team, I’m currently involved in developing the concept of a “learning theater” — both programmatically and architecturally. Pulling this concept out of primordial soup of imagination (if such a space already exists as we imagine it, we do not know of it), our team embarked on a very broad inquiry:
What could a learning theater be?
What could it be within a library (in our case, it is)?
What is it within the context of Teachers College (with its legacy of innovation)?
We’ve already come a long way. Last winter, library staff hosted a series of design events with the TC community (summary videos can be viewed on Vialogues). This fall we’ve been working with a design team from Shepley Bulfinch to develop the concept and arrive at a schematic design. Our goal:
Renovate the 10,000 sq. ft. fourth floor of Russell Hall as a space for ambitious learning and research activities.
One aspect of our design progress that I’m very excited about is the ability for other educational institutions to use what we’re learning (and inevitably going to learn later on, after we move into our facility).
Don’t all schools need innovative teaching and learning spaces? These will be spaces that must accommodate richer and richer densities of learning tools – physical, digital, and any/every combination thereof. Being able to conduct research about teaching and learning in these spaces, therefore, seems to be increasingly important as well.
Retrofitting libraries and high school gymnasiums as new learning spaces could be only the beginning…
Earlier this year we implemented a new staff-side training tool at the Gottesman Libraries: flashcards. That doesn’t sound progressive (it’s rote learning!), but we’re using a very cool tool developed by Teachers College alum Andrew Cohen: Brainscape.
Our library has a public knowledge base (FAQs), and a staff knowledge base that is more extensive, but with the variety of services we offer, it’s difficult to include nuances (even very important ones!) in these resources. So we use flashcards to extend and deepen staff knowledge of key services.
For example, the library hosts and supports the TC community blogging on Pressible, which is built on WordPress. There are a myriad of details that a library patron might want to know, especially if they are familiar with WordPress. Since our system includes many customizations, flashcards cover issues such as:
Q: “How do I get an image on my bio page?” A: Pressible uses Gravatar.com — a tool built and run by the company that supports WordPress. If someone has a Gravatar, Pressible will use it automatically.
Q: “Can anyone sign up as an author on Pressible?” A: No, only individuals with TC or CU emails can sign up. However, site administrators can manually add anyone (with any email) as an author using the “Add User” menu.
Q: “Why is there a big empty gray bar across the top of my site?” A: This is automatically filled with links to posts when authors use Categories (displayed as Topics).
Knowing the answers to these kinds of questions has helped staff better understand our tools (we’ve confirmed this via various anonymous surveys). Anything that makes staff more confident in correctly answering questions is very helpful—more responsive staff means a better (more accurate and speedier) experience for our learning community.
We’ve already developed dozens of flashcards on a variety of topics to date, and our experience with Brainscape has given us the confidence to continue to develop flashcards as key staff training tools.
I like how Simon frames the issue of participation around the challenge of making it meaningful – because it’s all too easy to create meaningless activities. But at the same time, she suggests, the hooks for engagement have to be simple enough that people are willing to try something new.
That’s tough to do!
I find that easy and interesting are often at odds. For example, our current goal is to use Twitter as a tool of engagement. But what do you ask people to contribute? 160 characters is already technically simple for folks with a Twitter account, but what kind of content should we elicit?
Photo of a library event by Diana Diroy
For me, solving this issue for a particular content is the essence of an exhibition design process – a process that should result in a unique and engaging solution that serves as a great foundation for learning.
One strategy is to aim to make the results of small contributions cumulative – either in a way that creates one large result, or as a mosaic showcasing individual contributions. Another is to make them personal (perhaps identity-oriented is a similar but useful way to think of this).
Another strategy is to offer an extrinsic reward – to offer a prize, for example. But this seems to be less genuine, or at least less likely to relate to learning. On the other hand, this could be a hook that engages a contributor to do more.
Giant Firefly by AMNH
One recent example of a bad interactive solution that comes to mind is from the recent Creatures of Light exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History (sorry guys). While the exhibit had some nice elements, I was disappointed by the gigantic firefly (six feet long?) that hung from the ceiling and glowed at the press of a button (working from memory here) at the entrance of the show. What did this accomplish?
I assume it was supposed to echo the bioluminescence theme of the exhibit, but for my 3-year-old it really just raised the question, “Are fireflies really that big?” I’m not saying that elements need to work for everyone, but really: aren’t there dozens of more exciting ways to show off the mechanisms of science while creating a stronger foundation for learning? (Wouldn’t a six foot magnifying glass aimed at a life-size firefly been many times more awesome? Aren’t there ways to use lighting to better effect?)
Using a traditional exhibition toolbox (scale, lighting, drama, etc.) alongside newer technologies is a big challenge. I’m excited to see what we can come up with here at Teachers College!
It’s always interesting to see the funding trends in the area of the “digital humanities.” In this case, the buzz is about UVA’s “Library’s Scholars’ Lab” getting additional grant funding. Here’s an additional note on where the money’s going:
The Mellon funding will also allow the Scholarly Communications Institute to conduct a broad survey of humanities scholars who self-identify as working in alternative academic careers, or jobs that require advanced degrees and scholarly skills, but aren’t necessarily on the traditional faculty tenure track.
