Learning Spaces Research Articles

The entanglement of learning spaces, pedagogies, and technologies with the global polycrisis

This concise paper emphasises and amplifies the themes of this year’s ASCILITE Conference by elaborating on their importance contributing to higher education’s vital agenda of advancing human rights, democracy, justice and sustainability. We address the conference themes —learning spaces, pedagogies, and technologies— from a macro perspective, considering a range of urgent global issues with which higher education is entangled. These issues shape the possibilities and risks of higher education everywhere, as well as technology enhanced learning in particular. In the paper, we consider a range of challenges posed by the current global polycrisis, present a framework for confronting these challenges within higher education, and offer a set of questions for collective consideration in order to strengthen the higher education community’s ability to cope with a threatening and unstable future.

Navigating the terrain of academic publishing in educational technology

The field of educational technology (EdTech) is characterised by innovation and emerging technologies which continually provide new opportunities to enhance learning environments. As the theme of the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ASCILITE) 2024 conference suggests, the field explores emerging frontiers in learning spaces, pedagogies, and technologies and findings from this exploration should be made accessible to the community. Academic publishing is a key channel through which outcomes are disseminated to researchers and practitioners. Therefore, it is important to understand the current state of the publishing terrain opportunities can be embraced while also addressing the challenges that threaten the integrity and sustainability of EdTech publishing into the future. In this position paper the current opportunities and challenges relating to EdTech publishing are explored with reference to open data from journal ranking organisations, journal websites, and related literature. The aim is to examine how these issues, including scale, cost, peer review, generative AI, and the integrity of the publishing processes influence the perceived impact of EdTech journals. This discussion informs the identification of key questions that stakeholders in the field need to address to ensure a sustainable and impactful future for EdTech publishing.

Making comedy for learning spaces

Expansion of technology-mediated learning spaces creates opportunities for disrupting traditional learning and teaching norms and practices. Combining technological affordances and humour in online learning environments offers potential gains in student engagement and learning. Current research reports effectiveness of using humour for teaching but less on practical guidance for educators in how to professionally develop this. This paper is a critical autobiographic narrative about the experience of developing short comedy videos for teaching concepts that students commonly struggle with in an undergraduate methods of research course. Insights for practice include a seven-step method and critical reflection for educators interested in developing skills and networks for disrupting traditional teaching methods to create targeted humorous videos for specific concepts in their courses.

Navigating the complex terrain of online professional learning

Professional learning plays an important role in improving teaching skills of university academics. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is a central framework as well as methodology for designing and delivering professional learning. As of 2022, 39% of Australian universities offer a graduate certificate in learning and teaching (GCLT) or similar to upskill academics. These courses are either fully or partially online; and nearly all include a dedicated SoTL unit or draw on SoTL generally across its content. Little is known about how GCLTs and similar courses affect teaching practice and long-term professional growth of academic staff, calling for a deeper exploration of SoTL-informed professional learning on academics’ skills and careers. This study offers an evidence-based perspective through the exploration of academic experiences in a SoTL-focused unit within a fully online GCLT in a mid-range Australian university. A survey of the unit’s first three graduating cohorts (2015-2017), attracted 30 respondents (56% of invitees), generating new insights into how professional learners navigate online, self-regulated, asynchronous learning spaces and how this learning affects their teaching and careers. Findings speak to learner motivation, impact and general effectiveness of online professional learning.

Hybrid learning spaces

Hybrid learning spaces

Preparing pre-service teachers for Generation Alpha: A social innovation perspective

Background: This era of exponential technological advancements makes us profoundly aware of the role that education must play to ensure that ‘humankind’ is not only able to live but thrive in a world challenged by environmental and social issues. Many of our pre-service teachers are digital natives. However, they will have to be taught to become digital integrators in a learning space where technological innovation aligns with social innovation. This calls for teacher education institutions to critically analyse their curriculum design.Aim: This study aims to investigate the extent to which pre-service teachers are prepared to teach Generation Alpha and it also highlights the imperatives for reimagining teacher education curricula for future generations within the context of social innovation.Setting: This study is conducted on fourth-year Bachelor of Education students who attend a private higher education institution and teacher educators based in teacher education institutions in Gauteng, South Africa.Methods: A qualitative case study research strategy is used in this study. Data were collected through focus group interviews and individual interviews. The raw data were analysed through content analysis.Results: The key findings of this study indicate that fourth-year BEd students believe that they are not adequately prepared to teach Generation Alpha learners within the context of social innovation. This belief is validated by teacher educators.Conclusion: Pre-service teachers must be competent in technological innovation, social innovation and global citizenship to enable them to produce learners who are socially, and ethically responsible, as well as emotionally intelligent innovators, leaders and communicators.Contribution: To mobilise and expedite these competencies, teacher education institutions must redesign their pedagogical models and teacher education curricula to align with the educational needs of the future generations.

Aesthetic Learning Spaces: An Investigation into the Status in Danish Early Childhood Teacher Education

The aim of this article is to delve into and discuss the past and present conditions of aesthetic learning spaces in the Early Childhood Teacher Education (ECTE) program in Denmark, and how these conditions impact its learning environment. The investigation encompasses a variety of data sources and research methods aimed at capturing both the intricate and broader aspects of the focal question. The investigation includes (1) a discussion of educational reforms and how they affect aesthetic learning spaces, (2) a discourse analysis examining the descriptions of new iterations of aesthetic learning spaces, including makerspaces and playlabs, and (3) qualitative interviews with students and educators conducted during a building workshop. The study’s key discovery is that aesthetic learning spaces in ECTE have undergone a shift, becoming spaces that emphasize generic skills and academic abilities, as opposed to domain-specific tools and techniques. In the article, this transformation is connected to broader societal trends and analyzed through the lenses of sociological, educational and creativity theories, drawing upon the work of scholars such as Richard Sennett, Lene Tanggaard and John Krejsler. At the article’s conclusion, future topics for study are suggested.

P‐Hologen: An End‐to‐End Generative Framework for Phase‐Only Holograms

AbstractHolography stands at the forefront of visual technology, offering immersive, three‐dimensional visualizations through the manipulation of light wave amplitude and phase. Although generative models have been extensively explored in the image domain, their application to holograms remains relatively underexplored due to the inherent complexity of phase learning. Exploiting generative models for holograms offers exciting opportunities for advancing innovation and creativity, such as semantic‐aware hologram generation and editing. Currently, the most viable approach for utilizing generative models in the hologram domain involves integrating an image‐based generative model with an image‐to‐hologram conversion model, which comes at the cost of increased computational complexity and inefficiency. To tackle this problem, we introduce P‐Hologen, the first end‐to‐end generative framework designed for phase‐only holograms (POHs). P‐Hologen employs vector quantized variational autoencoders to capture the complex distributions of POHs. It also integrates the angular spectrum method into the training process, constructing latent spaces for complex phase data using strategies from the image processing domain. Extensive experiments demonstrate that P‐Hologen achieves superior quality and computational efficiency compared to the existing methods. Furthermore, our model generates high‐quality unseen, diverse holographic content from its learned latent space without requiring pre‐existing images. Our work paves the way for new applications and methodologies in holographic content creation, opening a new era in the exploration of generative holographic content. The code for our paper is publicly available on https://github.com/james0223/P-Hologen.

Human-made sounds in informal learning spaces on a university campus

The university property management department has been facing a challenge with the strategic management of campus spaces due to the need for informal learning spaces (ILSs) to facilitate students’ independent studies. However, there’s limited research on how these ILSs perform, particularly concerning human-made sounds. This study delves into the impact of human-made sounds on students, considering their individual differences and positive experiences in various types of ILSs within an Australian university campus. The investigation includes open-ended questions to delve deeper into students’ positive experiences with human-made sounds across different ILSs. The research findings demonstrate that the impact of human-made sounds on students is influenced by certain individual characteristics. Additionally, the study identifies three types of positive experiences regarding human-made sounds in ILSs for students: a sense of relaxation induced by human-made sounds, the sound-masking effect, and increased motivation for learning. This study could assist university property managers in understanding students’ perceptions of human-made sounds and aid in strategic management of campus space that aligns with students’ needs and preferences for ILSs, improving the overall learning environment and support student success.

Self-supervised Learning Approach for Anomaly Detection in Rotating Machinery

Early fault detection in rotating machinery needs careful expert analysis of vibration data for monitoring a component state. Online methods that automatically set a threshold and raise an alarm when the vibration signature is anomalous are meant to efficiently manage key assets in a preventive maintenance plan. In recent years a focus has raised on data driven methods in parallel with the increasing attention towards machine learning and, particularly, deep learning models. In this regard, for rotating equipment components, an important aspect relates to labelled data scarcity for supervised training. On the other hand, the advent of the Internet of Things allows to gather data from multiple assets with relevant information on the asset state itself. Self-supervised learning methods in deep learning application are currently tackling this problem. Investigating Self-learning approaches to integrate domain knowledge and learn relevant features from unlabeled data is therefore important for condition monitoring applications. In this paper a methodology is proposed based on cycle consistency representation learning for training an embedder network on univariate unlabeled data. In order to learn a distance metric in the embedding space the original data are transformed to generate sequences of augmented inputs to enforce learnable pattern similarity in the augmented pairs. A differentiable cycle-consistency loss is chosen to maximize the numbers of augmented pairs in the learned embedding space that have minimum features distance. The pretext task in the described self-supervised setting aims to train a feature extractor for discriminating dissimilar samples in the embedding space by a distance metric and to provide a useful representation for down-stream tasks. The paper analyzes the performance of the approach for anomaly detection in rotating machinery. The methodology is tested on vibration data provided by the Center for Intelligent Maintenance Systems (IMS), University of Cincinnati, considering different accelerated life test campaigns. The data were collected to monitor the fault development in bearings and the model shows how the learned embedding space discriminates effectively anomalous samples from normal ones in the degradation stages of the bearings.

“Doin’ diversity” in teacher education: beginning Black teacher discourses on learning to teach for diversity

The voices of Black preservice teachers are largely missing from discussions about teacher diversity, and one place this is evident is in teacher education diversity coursework. This article shares findings from a qualitative study using critical race methodology with five novice Black teachers’ experiences in teacher education courses focused on diversity in education. Three semi-structured life history interviews were conducted for each teacher and data were analyzed using zoom model analysis. Findings revealed that during their preservice experiences in teacher education diversity courses, Black teachers experience such learning spaces in alienating ways despite entering the program with strong commitments to improving education outcomes for Black children. Findings demonstrate that teacher educators and teacher education programs must raise the expectations for engaged learning in the diversity course in order to better support Black teachers and contribute to diversification of the teaching force in meaningful ways.

Protocol for leading health services innovation: a hybrid type 2 mixed method implementation trial for developing and assessing a codesigned graduate certificate program in health innovation

BackgroundA significant issue with innovative problem-solving in healthcare is an existing deficiency in continuing education for many healthcare professionals, which hinders the successful implementation of inventive solutions and progress in the field. Educators play a crucial role in guiding students to cultivate the knowledge and skills necessary to confront these challenges, including problem solving, collaboration, and the use of rapidly advancing technologies. It is vital to design educational programs that empower and motivate students to develop the proficiency and knowledge they need to be effective problem solvers, collaborators, and cultivators of innovative solutions. This project aims to assess the implementation and effectiveness of a codesigned postgraduate university program for a multidisciplinary health workforce.MethodsThe Leading Health Services Innovation Project is a hybrid type 2 mixed method implementation trial of a codesigned Graduate Certificate in Health Services Innovation. In collaboration with a large tertiary and quaternary health service, we developed a codesign process to guide the project, with time quarantined to create space for two-way learning between health sector partners and healthcare academics. Qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys for primary users will evaluate the implementation strategies. The reach, effectiveness, adoption implementation, and maintenance (RE-AIM) framework will guide the evaluation and maintenance of the program.ResultsIntegrating a codesign strategy complemented by a well-structured implementation and evaluation protocol that is a combination of implementation science theoretical frameworks (Knowledge to Action, Evidence-Based Co-design, RE-AIM) may lead to translational competence as a potential outcome.Anticipated outcomesThe application, resourcing and commitment to codesigned tertiary-level learning and qualification will demonstrate the achievement of a contemporary and comprehensive postgraduate university degree program in health innovation management.

Implementasi Teknologi Metaverse Dengan Metode Kualitatif Pada Man Insan Cendekia Oki

This research aims to explore the application of metaverse technology at MAN Insan Cendekia OKI through a qualitative approach. In an educational context, the metaverse offers an immersive and interactive learning space, allowing students to interact in a virtual environment. Through in-depth interviews and observations, this research identifies the challenges and opportunities faced in the integration of this technology. The findings show that despite barriers in infrastructure and technological understanding, implementing metaverses can increase student engagement and create more engaging learning experiences. Recommendations are provided to improve technical support and training for educators in implementing the metaverse effectively.

Design Thinking in Online Spaces: How Students Develop Their Engineering Identities

Engineering identity plays a key role in the educational experiences of undergraduates majoring in engineering fields. Design thinking pedagogy can enhance engineering identity. However, little is known about how design-thinking pedagogy influences engineering identity development within an online environment, and specifically how this looked during the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand how a design thinking-oriented engineering course delivered online supports undergraduate students’ engineering identity development during the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers collected 63 observations, totaling approximately 79 hours of observation of an embedded systems engineering course. Findings revealed the importance of language and framing in shaping engineering identity in online learning spaces. In addition, online student-faculty interactions were seen as an area of growth. Finally, the study found that online spaces can complicate opportunities for engineering identity performance. This study has implications regarding intentionality and online learning. To enhance engineering identity, faculty and administrators should consider how they use language to frame their courses and create meaningful student-faculty interactions.

Academics’ Experiences during Horrible Times: Online Teaching, Learning, and COVID-19

E-Learning has become the new normal in Higher Educational Institutions across South Africa. Hence, intergration of the new learning pedagogies has initiated a shift of the norms on professional development. This paper seeks to unpack the strategies used by lecturers in the face of adversities experienced during the E-learning space pre & post Covid-19. There are strategies advised by teacher autonomy which need to be explored. It might have been better if teacher autonomy was merely being against pressures exerted on the individual teachers. But, it is a means for teachers to advance their personal and professional capability to adapt to the rapidly changing conditions and situations in learning spaces. This paper seeks to unravel an unacquainted new path on the drive of lecturers in their professional development that has not been evident in their training. In socio-politically transforming societies such as South Africa, the absence of adequate structures to implement a range of changing policies, may leave lecturers in despair when trying to access development opportunities. This paper adopts analytic theory and semi-structured interviews to give light to the constructivist views of lecturers who have developed methods during the times of adversity. Purposive sampling of 6 lecturers and 10 students will help the generation of data for this study because even though lectures had to adjust to new methods but students were in the receiving end of all the pressure. This study argues for implementation of best practices for the successful professional development of academics in line with E-learning. The University of Limpopo will be the centre of data generation with ethical considerations requested as well as literature visited. Collected data will be thematically analysed in order to sieve and arrange the necessary information for this study. The newly shared practices will form part of the resolutions to the professional development of academic staff.

Biographically Driven Development of Translanguaging Stance for a Modern Language Teacher Candidate in a Graduate TESOL Class

This case study investigated a modern language teacher candidate’s developing translanguaging stance in a Masters-level TESOL course as she made sense of emerging tensions while drawing on her personal and teaching experiences. Data included the participant’s oral contributions to the course, the course syllabus, and student-produced artifacts. We used thematic analysis focusing on the participant’s perceptions of translanguaging as both theory and practice to analyze the data. A semi-structured interview was carried out five years later to review the impact of translanguaging on the participant’s teaching and ideology as a Spanish teacher in a dual language program. Findings uncovered five primary themes all related to the participant’s biographically related development of translanguaging stance: traditional second language acquisition theories as a concern, updating the notion of social justice, the ability to support positive identity development, contemplating translanguaging as a pedagogy, and the longevity of the biographical approach to lifelong learning. The findings highlight the importance of biographical approaches to lifelong learning in language education and suggest that teachers can foster bilingual development, establish inclusive teaching strategies, and create equitable language learning spaces by recognizing the potential of translanguaging, which may be made possible by fostering similar contexts in teacher education courses.

Blending belonging

The disruption caused by the Covid pandemic to expectations of and assumptions surrounding already disputed concepts such as engagement and participation within the student journey throughout tertiary education remains wicked in its unruliness. As such, our ability as practitioners to anticipate and manage students’ (and our own) expectations in both physical and virtual learning spaces is dynamic and fragile. However, the in-between space created by the tension of the desire to nurture a new normal and avoid The Snapback (Bryant, 2021), gives rise not only to uncertainty, but scope to innovate for enhancement. This case study will share reflections on using an e-portfolio assessment to address and consolidate the mooted four foundations of belonging in HE (Wonkhe and Pearson, 2022); connection, inclusion, support, and autonomy. The paper will consider the implications of facilitating and promoting these dimensions in the context of supporting an ever-more heterogeneous student population within tertiary education, for whom recent experiences of formal, post-compulsory education may have been disjointed or interrupted. The e-portfolio (using Pebblepad) supports engagement within the case study university’s embedded Academic, Professional and Personal Development curriculum framework, which has been designed to support learners with diverse and rich prior experiences of learning and, using an academic literacies (Lea & Street, 2006) based ethos, facilitate the extrapolation of existing competences and confidence to the academic domain.

Academic nursing administrators perceptions of replacing clinical hours with simulation

BackgroundNursing education has seen a shift towards simulation-based education (SBE) to meet the demands of a rapidly evolving healthcare landscape. Maryland's Clinical Simulation Resource Consortium (MCSRC) aimed to enhance SBE utilization; however, noted a decline in SBE usage post pandemic prompting an investigation into nurse administrators' perspectives on replacing clinical hours with SBE. MethodsThis descriptive quality improvement study was informed by Rogers' Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) Theory. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with four academic nurse administrators from various pre-licensure nursing programs in Maryland. The data collected were analyzed using thematic analysis. ResultsNurse administrators who value SBE as a safe learning space are integral when building and maintaining infrastructure to support simulation usage. Identified barriers related to faculty buy-in, workload, and inadequate human resources to deliver high-quality simulations can hinder sustained adoption of clinical simulation. ConclusionsThis study highlights the necessity of continuous faculty training in SBE and dedicated resources to support simulation infrastructure. Recommendations include sustained investment in faculty development, creating specialized roles for simulation champions, and fostering collaborations to strengthen simulation integration. The findings emphasize the pivotal role of nurse administrators in navigating challenges and maximizing SBE's potential to replace clinical hours in nursing education, urging ongoing support and strategic planning for successful integration.

Creating online, inclusive spaces for learning: ‘Study Together’ with the personal learning advice service

There is a wealth of scholarship on the benefits of synchronous writing sessions for staff and students in higher education (Kornhaber et al., 2016; Eardley et al., 2021; Morley and Aston, 2023). In the Personal Learning Advice (PLA) Service at the Open University UK (OU), we developed bespoke, online study spaces for students from groups currently underrepresented in higher education – known as ‘Study Together’ sessions. The sessions prioritise students from minoritised ethnic groups, students with disabilities, and students with mental health needs who are at risk of poorer study outcomes. This presentation charted the development of Study Together in response to student feedback and evaluation and sought to show the value of ‘targeted’ invitations to engage students with spaces for learning development. Our presentation began by outlining the rationale for a 2022-23 Study Together pilot and its impact on community and belonging for students with mental health declarations (Lavery et al., 2023). We shared our approach to hosting Study Together and the techniques used to create an inclusive, productive study space; we showed how these approaches allowed us to incorporate timed study bursts and reflective practice, building positive study habits among students. Finally, we presented findings from the evaluation of Study Together in 2023-24 and situated this within the wider literature on the benefits of virtual communities of practice for learning. Our presentation spoke directly to the ALDcon24 theme ‘Building inclusive learning development spaces’ and invited delegates to consider the place of virtual, guided study spaces in their own practice.

Where’s the fun in that? Building an authentic, inclusive, serious-yet-playful learning development framework

At the University of the West of Scotland, one of the ways in which first year students engage in exploring academic, personal, and professional literacies is through an embedded and contextualised credit-bearing module that runs alongside subject specific study. The module offers students opportunities to explore aspects of identity, values, and motivations as part of long, thin, scaffolded engagement running over two terms, and provides a mutable space for student-led discussion on a breadth of aspects of longitudinal transition support, becoming, as well, a space to engage with learning development principles and practices. In so doing, learning experiences within the module are at once guided and exploratory, presenting a risky safe space (Boyd, Wilson and Smith, 2023) for students to use in their transition towards increased autonomy and confidence. This session considered how the flexibility of the learning and teaching spaces created in the module (physical and virtual) allows for both reinforcement of formal structures/ requirements such as assessment processes (the serious part) as well as the freedom to negotiate personalised, aspirational, agentic, experimental learning experiences (more playfully intended). The session shared examples of classroom activities and presented learner feedback. Delegates were invited to share reflection on their own experiences of designing and delivering similar experiences and contribute to a fuller understanding of the value of maintaining balance within the serious-play spectrum.