Journal of Learning Spaces Volume 6, Number 3. 2017 ISSN 21586195 Informal learning spaces and their impact on learning in higher education: Framing new narratives of participation Craig Deed Scott Alterator La Trobe University, Australia La Trobe University, Australia Evaluating informal learning spaces in higher education institutions needs to respond to the complex conceptual orientation underpinning their intention and design. This article outlines a model of participatory analysis that accounts for the conceptual complexity, lived experience and broad intentions of informal learning space. Further, the article contributes an educational language and orientation to the learning space narrative to inform post- occupancy evaluations and future projects. A key response to the demands of higher education in the twenty-first century has been the recognition of the need for Conceptualising higher education learning student-oriented teaching and learning environments and the role of space (Jamieson, 2003; JISC, 2006; Keppell & Riddle, 2013; Scholl & Gulwadi, 2015). Considerable investment in higher education facilities has taken place across the world. Yet a The contemporary higher education campus is made up paradox is emerging between this investment in built space of multiple nested spaces, with interaction and connectivity and approaches to teaching and learning that emphasize between institutional environments and spaces more online, flexible, or mobile learning. What this means is the representative of school-less contexts (Author, 2017). The emergence of built informal learning environments on recontextualizing of campus learning environments campus. Predominantly, the development of institutional includes a transition to more unstructured and informal teaching spaces and informal learning environments has settings. This built-informality assumes that both the been informed by principles understood as foundational to educator and learner are able to modify and adopt teaching a student- centric and meaningful experience (Finkelstein, and learning behaviours appropriate to these spatial modes Ferris, Weston, & Winer, 2016). For this field of study to (McAuley, Stewart, Siemens, & Cormier, 2010). mature we must adopt evidence-based models of There is a complementarity between pedagogical theory occupancy-assessment to justify continuing investment, that is student-oriented, mobile technology enabling inform future designs, and maximise the learning potential personalized, learner-centred, situated, collaborative, and for students occupying the spaces. ubiquitous learning (Collinson, 1999; Solvberg & Rismark, This paper argues for the complexity of the conceptual 2012), and learning environments that accelerate the orientation and the importance and contingency of the lived possibilities of where, how and when learning occurs. experience; and adopts an ecological model to accommodate Thomas (2010) recognizes that the majority of learning the numerous intersecting concepts relevant to this field. occurs in spaces not intended as learning spaces. Informal Here we outline a project that will develop a post-occupancy learning environments afford a space where these evaluation model grounded in our conceptualisation of transformative drivers may potentially intersect. learning space and use, pedagogical coherence, and a robust This raises the question of how higher education students methodology combining qualitative and quantitative tools. experience campus-based informal learning spaces. We We develop and use the Learning Spaces and Participation consider that students will interpret, participate and react in tool (Fig 1) to evaluate informal learning spaces across a dynamic way to the constraints and possibilities of each multiple locations on a single University site in a regional new context, given their need to achieve the purposes of city in Australia. education (J. Greeno, 2009). A generative way to characterize student use of informal space is to use Sfard’s (1998) metaphor of participation. This is consistent with theoretical accounts of the interaction of space and the availability of Craig Deed is Associate Professor, La Trobe University. learning modes (Boddington & Boys, 2011; Jamieson, Fisher, Scott Alterator is a Lecturer, La Trobe University. Gilding, Taylor, & Trevitt, 2000; Lippman, 2010). This raises questions about how higher education administrators and 54 INFORMAL LEARNING SPACES AND THEIR IMPACT ON LEARNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION educators conceptualize the scope of participatory practices design phase. We acknowledge the limitation of a principle- of their students who are learning through interactions with based conceptualisation – especially as the task of collecting space that are markedly different from recognized and analysing data enters a new phase. This new phase traditions. It is also interesting to consider the assumptions enables us to contribute an educational lexicon drawing on we make about student use of informal space; or, indeed, the learning and ecological principles to augment the design student perceptions about the possibilities and constraints narrative. these spaces provide for contemporary approaches to learning. How do we advance our conceptual The conceptual orientation allows us to establish a set of understandings to frame a robust and data questions to guide the collection of data and inform users – driven post-occupancy evaluation? designers, lecturers, and administrators – as we progress toward evidence based understanding. What choices do students make about when, how and why they use these Here we seek to problematise the area by examining the spaces? How are these choices influenced by, and how can conceptual density underpinning the study of space and they influence, institutional learning processes? student use. Further, we see this as necessary in developing meaningful models for assessing the spaces in use. Advanced renderings of this set of goals demands a new Principles-based approach conceptualisation required to understand the lived experience. Recent space design in higher education has been largely Our understanding of learning space is premised on based on a set of principles understood to generate spatiality: that space is understood as a social construction conditions conducive to certain learning behaviours. The within a broader sociocultural milieu (Boys, 2011; Lefebvre, new spaces do not, by themselves, challenge the existing 1994/1974). Further, that space is conceived and experienced traditions of lectures, teacher-oriented ‘broadcast’ or as liminal (Sellers & Souter, 2012) and transitional (Sagan, instructional learning and formal curriculum structures; 2011). We follow the lead of Keppell and Riddle’s (2012) however, they are recognised as powerful embodiments of distributed learning spaces with an emphasis on what is possible as much as what is not. Consequently, diversifying physical and virtual learning spaces. Our work where traditional spaces embody particular approaches to is also informed by affordance theory (Author, 2016; Gibson, learning, reimagined spaces offer affordances of a different 1977; J. Greeno, G, 1994) allowing for the reading of spaces kind (Thomas, 2010). The prevailing set of principles in line with intended, unintended, potential and realised generally aims at spaces that are fluid and responsive to a realities. range of student needs consistent with the twenty-first Turning specifically to informal learning spaces we century context: collaboration, agility and connectedness. outline interactions and tensions between a student-driven Further, the principles are a response to the increasing campus experience and formal learning. We frame this by importance of student experience measures with a clear link using Sfard’s (1998) metaphor of participation with its to spaces on campus generally and specifically (Scholl & emphasis on learning activity as situated, embedded in and Gulwadi, 2015). Moreover, they are linked to student mediated by socio-cultural processes. Participation is engagement at a thematic level in the United States: relevant as it is concerned with “patterned human processes, academic challenge; learning with peers; experiences with both individual and collective” (Sfard, 2006, p. 22). faculty; campus environment; high impact practices Participatory analysis is concerned with activity, practice or (Finkelstein et al., 2016) patterned human processes (Sfard, 1998). This approach has led to particular principles emerging as Informal learning spaces can only be seen as being dominant. Across the previous two decades, the principles embedded within institutional space. Participation in have developed toward broad conceptual categories-- activities in these spaces is a function of the larger, Multiple uses; flexibility; vertical integration; teacher and encompassing institutional entity. Although informal spaces student control; alignment of curriculum; maximise access do not stand apart, perhaps they are more dynamic places, (Jamieson et al., 2000). Comfort level; aesthetic impact; fit expressing and authorising concepts of school-lessness, out; layout (Jamieson, 2003, pp. 130-131). comfort; aesthetics; flexibility, democracy, agency and community (Author, flow; equity; blending; affordances; repurposing (Keppell & 2015). Our analysis of the student use of informal space is Riddle, 2013, p. 31). Keppell and Riddles’s (2013) most recent premised on a three participatory conceptualisations of work develops a useful