Pedagogical Issues

This is where you consider how your plans relate to your teaching and learning strategy. Further discussion on this can be found in the Anticipation: What Are Learners Doing? section. In our resource collection, a selection of case studies and photo library show how different pedagogic approaches are exemplified in building designs.

Case Studies

 Durham University

 University of Sussex

 Northumbria University

 Glasgow Caledonian University

 Edinburgh's Telford College

The University of Strathclyde, like many others, still relies heavily on traditional lectures but has adapted a lecture theatre so students can turn round and use PCs so that practical aspects of the subject can be better integrated than when lectures and practicals are delivered separately. Similarly it has banana-shaped desks in traditional seminar rooms to encourage collaboration and conversational learning. You can view these in our Virtual Tour within the resource collection.

The Department of Computer Science at Durham University promotes active learning via the design of its Techno-Café. Groups of students work in booths with a central table, laptops and tablet PCs and a large 48-inch plasma screen which each of the students can tap into their facility so that they can demonstrate to the rest of the group what progress they have made, what they are doing and they can collaborate on documents etc.

The University of Sussex stimulates creativity by using its InQbate space as an ever changing space in which flexible partitions, mood lighting and extensive audio visual equipment create a stimulating interactive environment. The idea of integration across learning spaces is also important to some organisations. We can see examples of integrated approaches at Northumbria University library which has been refurbished to provide more flexible places that cater for individual or group learning but are still adjacent to reference material and learner support services; in the Glasgow Caledonian University Saltire Centre where library and social space meet and at Telford College where break-out spaces are sited right outside classrooms.