Collaboration in New Spaces: One Room, One Summer, One Two-Year Technical College
Amy Edwards Patterson, Moraine Park Technical College
Introduction
Identify the Needs of Students
Articulate Pedagogical Goals
Operationalize Goals
Continue to Change
Celebrate Rewards
Develop Solutions for Challenges
Continue to build and change computer-rich environments from a position of strength
To continue to build and change collaborative learning spaces from a position of strength (as recommended by R. Selfe, 2005), Moraine Park must consider what has worked well, what has presented challenges, and how the space might compare to similar spaces in the WTCS. Many other technical colleges in the WTCS are currently creating similar classrooms—or, in other cases, technical colleges already completed these learning spaces. At Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, based in Green Bay, Wisconsin, employees recently incorporated classroom space similar to Moraine Park’s active-learning classroom. At NWTC, the college refered to these spaces as collaborative classrooms. “We have a couple of flavors of what we call our collaborative classrooms, but we’re talking the same language between colleges,” explained John Siemering, Media Service Manager at NWTC (personal communication, n.d.). His college visited the active-learning classroom on the Beaver Dam campus at Moraine Park to begin creating their own unique space.
According to Jason Zapf, manager of Learning Innovations and Distance Delivery at NWTC, “Our visit to tour the Beaver Dam classroom was absolutely instrumental, because we saw some things that we really liked and things that might have been challenging. We thought about how our faculty would work in this room, and then brought those ideas back. We were able to transform and better inform what we were doing here” (personal communication, 2012). Those transformations led to three new learning spaces at NWTC, each providing collaborative and interactive design elements. Two classrooms serve as General Studies classrooms, providing a marriage between a computer lab environment and a collaborative infrastructure. The remaining room, Zapf said, serves as a “sandbox” to test the latest technology and decide what works well for the students and instructors (Zapf, personal communication, 2012). Each classroom includes pod arrangements, with a whiteboard, laptop, and large screen at each pod.
Zapf stressed the importance of working closely with faculty, facilities, and Information Technology to create a space that fulfills pedagogical needs: “In reality, I’m never in the classroom and my IT friends don’t teach, either, so it would have been us making blind decisions, thinking we were well-informed. Without instructor feedback, the process wouldn’t have been successful” (Zapf, personal communication, 2012). According to Zapf, connecting with others to clarify the vision will help a technical college develop a successful, sustainable learning space:
I think the one thing that if we had to do over again … the fact that we possibly took for granted that the contractor knew what we needed. We really wanted this space to seem wireless, with the wires not readily visible, but after the contractors moved forward, we realized there was not an easy pathway to the [screens] that needed to be hooked up. We really had to scramble at the last minute to run the wiring from the student tables to the displays at each pod. With today's technology, you still need wire. You need wire from the table to the display, you need power coming to the table, so these pathways really need to be well-defined. (personal communication, 2012)
Zapf and his team soon discovered that extra funds were needed for audio-visual installation, since the pathways for wiring were not well-defined: “The three rooms sat above [a] lecture hall on the second floor, and the lecture hall had about a 20 foot ceiling. In the third floor, there were holes but no conduits underneath the floor. We had to run cabling from the second to the third floor, and working in 20 foot ceilings doesn't make that very easy to do!” (personal communication, 2012). Those small details, Zapf said, are crucial for colleges to explore when creating collaborative or interactive classrooms.
Due to the interactive nature of the classroom, Zapf is already seeing positive change in students and faculty at NWTC. Research shows that “students often learn better by doing rather than listening. Designs should enable interaction, transparency (seeing others engaged in work), and group work” (Lomas & Oblinger, 2006). The process might have developed through a trip to Moraine Park, but NWTC put their own spin on their projects to enhance their college atmosphere. Many technical colleges are embracing this type of interactive environment, noting the importance of technology for a technical college. After all, “neither learning nor socializing is one-dimensional; the physical complements the virtual, and vice versa” (Lomas & Oblinger, 2006).
Similarly, technical colleges are learning from each other as they “think through large-scale institutional initiatives that focus on technology in ways that are both carefully and broadly informed” (R. Selfe, 2005, p. 69). Before NWTC developed insights and strategies through a visit at Moraine Park, representatives from Moraine Park completed their own search for information—at Waukesha County Technical College, a technical college in Pewaukee, Wisconsin. At Waukesha County Technical College, business dean Brad Piazza and a team of stakeholders had the opportunity to convert a basic computer lab into an interactive learning space.
Piazza collaborated with learning technology teams, IT, and facilities to create this classroom, which includes technology such as SMART Boards and laptops, as well as furniture, chairs, desks, and pods that can move into any formation. “It’s amazing,” he said. “Even something as simple as having everything on wheels; it’s amazing what that does to the space” (Piazza, personal communication, 2012). The flexibility of wheels can foster diverse learning strategies, as Lomas and Oblinger (2006) have attested to: “The ability to rearrange the space … makes it possible for the same space to be used in many different ways, by many different groups, throughout the day.” Piazza shared that his faculty can easily use varied instructional styles to reach students.
The Waukesha County Technical College project, like Moraine Park’s active-learning classroom, moved quickly. Since the room had been a surprise decision, based on remaining funds and an “incredible opportunity,” as Piazza explained, the college had one fiscal year to complete the project. “In total,” Piazza estimated, “the room was about $40,000. The majority was furniture; the technology was fairly cheap” (personal communication, 2012). Piazza feels the enhanced experiences for students and instructors—and others who choose to have meetings in the space—have been worth the cost for developing the space. In addition to students’ ownership and engagement in the space, Piazza noted, “It’s a nice showcase room for us at student orientations and open houses, particularly for parents. We’re a technical college, so our students should be exposed to something technical in nature!” (personal communication, 2012). Exploring these different experiences among colleges in the WTCS allows each college to continue to build from a position of strength, particularly as rewards and challenges are considered.