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
Space may not be the final frontier for two-year colleges across the country, but several two-year colleges, inspired to meet student needs, are taking the lead to create and implement new and technologically sophisticated learning spaces. For example, Estrella Mountain Community College in Arizona began working in 2005 to “maximize learning opportunities through the design of innovative learning spaces and the integration of technology,” employing radical flexibility through their Learning Studios Project (Lopez & Gee, 2006). As Lopez and Gee (2006) explained, the college focused on classroom design, technology use and adaptability, innovative spatial relations and ergonomic design as goals throughout the creation process. Similarly, Santa Monica College, a community college based in California, is “engaging students in new ways with the help of a digital learning studio….Funded by a Department of Education grant, the studio includes multiple screens with advanced touch technology, special education software, a Smart Response system with 24 clickers, and eight iPads” (McCrea, 2012, para. 1). These updates at Santa Monica College support the college’s goal of “strengthening its minorities program through the use of experimental technologies” (McCrea, 2012, para. 2).
At Moraine Park Technical College, a two-year technical college in Wisconsin, funding set aside for an “innovation budget” also spurred the creation of a sustainable, collaborative learning space on the Beaver Dam campus. Moraine Park Technical College, one of 16 technical colleges in the Wisconsin Technical College System (WTCS), serves the communities in Beaver Dam, West Bend, and Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. The college offers more than 100 associate of applied science degrees, technical diplomas, apprenticeships, and certificates delivered in a variety of formats, including classroom, online, and blended. Most of the Moraine Park classrooms were built with an industrial model, often including physical constraints such as rigid chairs and long rows of tables that made collaborative projects and interaction difficult for students. However, many faculty members at Moraine Park hoped to engage students with greater interactivity: “Many instructors find that interspersing activity, discussion, and group work in lecture engages learners. Physical constraints, however, such as the ability of students to turn around their seats, can limit the success of these techniques” (Lomas & Oblinger, 2006).
Recognizing a need for a learning space that Brown and Long (2006) claimed should enhance active-learning strategies, embody human-centered design, and support diverse devices that enhance learning, Moraine Park deans Matt Hurtienne and Dan Pahlow collaborated with nearby technical colleges to explore collaborative learning environments in 2010. Both former teachers, Hurtienne, who served as the dean of Information Technology and the Beaver Dam campus, and Pahlow, the dean of business, desired to create learning experiences that promoted collaboration and allowed students to create and explore in an active-learning environment classroom—since, after all, “spaces are themselves agents for change” (Joint Information Systems Committee, 2006). Furthermore, as Lomas and Oblinger (2006) have noted, “well-designed learning spaces and enabling technologies encourage students to spend more time on campus, increasing engagement and improving retention.” Ready to pursue the development of a collaborative learning space, Hurtienne and Pahlow constructed an advisory group of staff, faculty, and administration in 2010 to explore the pedagogical practices and space design that would improve student learning, retention, and success through a collaborative learning environment (Hurtienne, personal communication, 2012; Pahlow, personal communication, 2013).
Despite the team’s early efforts in 2010, political controversy and budget cuts occurred in Wisconsin in early 2011, and the team assumed the room would be put on hold—at least temporarily, if not permanently. No further action took place that spring, but as the summer months began, the deans were told to move forward with the new room. Suddenly, the group had one summer to create a new, innovative learning space for students. The team rose to the challenge. Designs were drawn, furniture was selected, and other Wisconsin technical colleges were consulted for expertise on sustainable and innovative space design. In the fall of 2011, the room opened, and now, the space is complete with flexible tables, SMART technology, iPads, and Bretford Storage. Low-tech solutions—natural lighting through the room’s large windows, portable whiteboards, comfortable chairs, and aesthetically-pleasing carpet in the room—also create a unique, relaxed space that encourages student engagement, learning, and collaboration.
There is no typical Moraine Park student; with diverse backgrounds and an average age of 34, the student population includes students balancing school with work and family life, students attending college directly after high school, and students returning to school after years in the workforce ("District Fact Sheet," 2011). Therefore, the advisory team had to collaborate while considering how to best meet the pedagogical needs of this diverse student population—and meet those needs in an affordable manner.
This chapter will explore the development of the collaborative space, following the framework for creating technology-rich learning environments presented by Richard J. Selfe in Sustainable Computer Environments: Cultures of Support in English Studies and Language Arts (2005). The chapter will also highlight relationships with similar learning spaces at other Wisconsin technical colleges. Logistical challenges, training issues, sustainable features, and pedagogical needs will be pinpointed and analyzed, as well as the rewards found within collaborative learning spaces for both traditional and nontraditional students in the technical college environment.
The new space was intended for use by a wide variety of departments, including English, business and nursing; thus, creating a collaborative space collaboratively worked particularly well for the college. Hurtienne and Pahlow believed incorporating input from the instructors who would use the space would give them agency to then use the space to its full potential. The inclusion of instructor voices also allowed the team to gain insights from their students on their learning needs. In 1989, when Cynthia Selfe wrote Creating a Computer-Supported Writing Facility: A Blueprint for Action, she explained:
To build a successful computer-supported writing center, to sustain operations, and eventually improve the support such a facility provides, English composition teachers need to start with what they know about writing and teaching rather than what they know about technology. (p. xxi)
This statement remains equally important for creating any new classroom for any academic program. In Sustainable Computer Environments, R. Selfe (2005) expanded on C. Selfe’s vision, highlighting that, while these words still hold true, we need to look beyond writing and teaching and consider the existing context and shared pedagogical values in the creation of sustainable learning environments. He wrote: “The process that [Cynthia] Selfe sketched out … has remained remarkably stable and is intended to encourage interested English and language arts stakeholders to design environments that grow directly out of the context of an existing communication program: an environment that is shaped by the shared pedagogical values of a particular faculty and staff” (p. 14).
Figure 1: Focusing on Collaboration and Student Need |
Focusing on collaboration and student needs—and keeping in mind the diversity of age groups and demographics—played a crucial role in the inspiration for the space and creation process at Moraine Park (see video 1). As the team worked to create, develop, and implement a technology-rich collaborative environment, the collaborative process aligned well with the process that R. Selfe recommended in Sustainable Computer Environments (2005) when planning technology-rich environments:
Step 1: Identify the instructional needs of students
Step 2: Articulate explicit pedagogical goals based on teachers’ understanding of students’ needs
Step 3: Operationalize pedagogical goals through technologies, environments, systems, and people
Step 4: Continue to build and change computer-rich environments from a position of strength (p. 59).
R. Selfe (2005) added, “designing effective computer-supported teaching and learning environments is a rhetorically-sophisticated task that must be taken up by colleagues embedded in—and thus cognizant of—local technical, social and educational conditions” (p. 54). Because the mission of Moraine Park Technical College is “innovative education for an evolving workforce and community,” the college stakeholders support many innovative projects, particularly those that relate to the three strategic goals for the college: (1) achieve performance excellence, (2) enhance student success, and (3) strengthen community connections. The creation of the classroom, named the active-learning classroom to highlight the potential for active and collaborative learning practices, closely connected to the three strategic goals through enhanced student participation and college partnerships.
Figure 2: Creating an Active-Learning Space
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