Three Catawba College employees attended the 2013 Learning Spaces Collaboratory Workshop held at the Freelon Group offices in Durham on November 2. Those attending this one-day event included IT Services, Ms. Joanna Jasper, Chief Information Officer, and Mr. Chad Lewis, Director of Technical & Instructional Support, along with Dr. Erin Wood from the Psychology Department.
The conference brought together faculty, staff, and administrators from higher education institutions, along with architects and project planners to share their own experiences and brainstorm about the organization of spaces for learning both in disciplinary and multi-disciplinary arenas. The keynote speakers were Dr. Robert Beichner from North Carolina State University who presented his efforts with the NCSU STEM Education Initiative and the Student-Centered Active Learning Environment for Upside-down Pedagogies (SCALE-UP) model, as well as Edward Gomes, Senior Associate Dean from the Office of Technology Services at Duke University's Trinity College of Arts and Sciences who has been behind the institution's grand efforts in its Link Teaching and Learning Center.
Throughout the day in large and small group discussions, the assembly engaged current ideas of how learning happens in traditional physical spaces, as well as how it can happen with newer, "outside-of-the-box" methods derived from recent research on the interaction between learning and environment. The day ended with on-site visits to the Link at Duke University and the Biomanufacturing Research Institute & Technology Enterprise (BRITE) at North Carolina Central University.
The Catawba College attendees are already working on ways to bring their experiences back into campus discussion including via the Instructional Support Committee on which they each serve.
