Flexible Learning

Paul Morgan addresses the confluence of new technologies, education and design through three recent flexible learning centres.

This is an article from the Architecture Australia archives and may use outdated formatting

Photography by Peter Bennetts.

Review

The RMIT Swanston Library Flexible Learning Centre replaced bookstacks with computer terminals.

The RMIT Swanston Library Flexible Learning Centre replaced bookstacks with computer terminals.

Looking towards the “oasis” rooms.

Looking towards the “oasis” rooms.

“Oasis” at the Computer Science.

“Oasis” at the Computer Science.

Hamilton FLC concept diagram. The entire facility is understood as a Flexible Learning Centre.

Hamilton FLC concept diagram. The entire facility is understood as a Flexible Learning Centre.

The RMIT Computer Science FLC introduced a
radical shift in the planning of the department’s
computer laboratories.

The RMIT Computer Science FLC introduced a radical shift in the planning of the department’s computer laboratories.

The Flexible Learning Centre (FLC) is a university-based design outcome of the “flexible learning” educational principle that transforms the very nature of teaching and learning in a tertiary institution. The directional “chalk and talk” relationship between teacher and student – students as audience – here gives way to the model of information technology based self-learning within flexibly designed space. This revolution simultaneously provides a solution to the friction between educational facility demand and accommodation supply.

Flexible learning principles privilege self-learning as the key idea, where access to databases is critical to navigating the student’s learning experience. FLCs are either centres of learning within a pre-existing facility – primary, secondary or tertiary (TAFE or advanced) – or a stand-alone facility. Remarkably, feasibility work for social infrastructure at Melbourne Docklands currently includes an early learning centre, previously known as a creche.

This provides a key into the overarching pedagogical drive behind FLCs, the idea of life-long learning. Life-long learning assumes that in the current “early knowledge age” (post-industrial) access to education and knowledge is critical to personal development, employment opportunities and social connections. As opposed to the previous linear progression from primary to secondary to tertiary education, with each stage clearly bounded, life-long learning assumes a seamless education whereby individuals select from a myriad of learning formats including short courses, distance education, workplace learning or visiting the internet. If life-long learning principles are not instilled early within demographic groups that are currently disadvantaged, these groups are likely to develop social and demographic problems later on.

At the time of writing Morgan McKenna is engaged in feasibility work for RMIT University’s Flexible Learning Centre at Hamilton in Victoria’s west, an example of an entire facility (an existing veterinary institution) labelled as a flexible learning centre.

This project was driven by the local community who saw various tiers of education as critical to the economic and social future of a regional economy monopolised by the wool industry. The accompanying concept diagram represents a 3D interpretation of the life-long, flexible learning idea epitomised by the small Hamilton facility. Educational pathways are offered from secondary school to doctorate level in different teaching formats, supported by various centres – Business Incubator, Centre for Regional and Rural Development, and Schools Experience. In terms of design, the flexible learning space is at the centre, supported by specialist facility spaces (say, wet laboratories), resource and administrative spaces. On-line learning and the RMIT University International Community Exchange program link the region to a global system of regional communities.

The Computer Science Flexible Learning Centre at RMIT University’s city campus introduces a radical shift in the planning of the department’s computer laboratories and introduces one of the first applications of the full potential of the FLC idea to the university. The centre provides a Syndicate Room and conventional Computer Laboratory (each with 37 workstations) and an Oasis (7 workstations). It applies several elements of the FLC model: a “think tank” open plan environment that encourages collaboration and cross-disciplinary exchange supported by “oasis” quiet spaces, information technology, teaching staff and resources such as technical support, security, reception and printing.

Accessibility is also a key here – a similar facility in the same building is open seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day.

In the Syndicate Room students sit around “kitchen tables” of four to eight places, forming cells of activity rather than linear teaching, with tutors and demonstrators on hand as required. The appended Oasis Room is an elliptical space for seven students who wish to work in either a more interactive, or silent, environment than their colleagues in the Syndicate Room. The cellular table arrangements evoke a metaphor of the theatre of technology and new raked windows dramatise the accepted memory of “laboratory”, as do the inflated portals signalling entry. The presence of work and technology are illustrated in the grey painted shell of the room, as well as new and existing services.

A third project for the university was the provision of an FLC within the Swanston Library at RMIT’s city campus. In this design 150 workstations, most with computer terminals, replaced stacks containing books and carrels within the Building 8 library designed by Edmond and Corrigan. It is a variation on the FLC theme and contains the requisite elements of open and syndicate space areas, oasis spaces, and resources (information and copy centre). This design assumes the importance of self-learning, through access to the internet, library databases, on-line syllabuses and the availability of computer programs. It responds to one of the top ten student concerns in a university survey and has proved outstandingly popular.

As universities attempt to cut costs by shifting expenditure from building new floor area to information technology based education, FLCs appeal to facility and project managers by offering multistream learning: different departments and programs simultaneously using the same space. Timetabling becomes critical here at a time when academic departments are audited to ensure they fully utilise their existing accommodation.

The danger with the FLC movement is when the flexible learning principle is applied in name only (rather than in design application) to building stock, or when spaces are so flexible that they don’t cater well to any learning requirement. At its best, however, the design of FLCs foregrounds learning in the “knowledge age”, where students navigate their own educational pathways and maximise access to the global information network.

These projects extend RMIT’s ambition that innovative design is a direct outcome of flexible learning principles and provides a motivating environment for students.

Paul Morgan is a principal of Morgan McKenna. He thanks Professor John Ball, Graham Bell, Laurie Cuttiford, Michael McKenna, Professor Leon van Schaik and Deidre Thian for their contribution to the ideas in this article.

Source

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Published online: 1 Jul 2001

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Architecture Australia, July 2001

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