The built environment and public spaces informing teaching and learning

Abstract

Modern learning environments have evolved beyond traditional classrooms, encompassing various settings like digital networks, social media, communities, and urban landscapes. The defining characteristics of an educational space include purpose and intentionality, going beyond conventional boundaries and offering students practical, context-specific learning experiences. Engagement with public spaces and the constructed environment facilitates spatial engagement and participation.
 This text explores a critical pedagogy that aims to uncover institutional power and prevailing ideologies within everyday experiences, questioning the educational value of buildings, cities, streets, and walls. It examines the constructed environment as an educational tool, including cities, parks, houses, streets, public, and private spaces.
 Within the domain of educational research, urban public spaces and the built environment serve as crucial contexts for graduate students, providing experiential learning opportunities and an in-depth analysis of the intricate relationship between political and pedagogical rationales that shape urban spaces and structures. This exploration also extends to the spaces between buildings and the practices that influence them.
 Urban spaces offer genuine learning contexts, enhancing research skills and honing observational abilities. Students are encouraged to delve beneath the surface of familiarity, transcending self-evident truths.
 The text presents three case studies examining cultures formed by young individuals in schools, urban populations, small communities, and urban artists. These studies spotlight the educational significance embedded within the interplay of spatial configurations and the inhabitants of these spaces.
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