Form or Content…or Both? New Learning Lab Slated for Hart Hall

Members of the R-PEACE team, together with faculty associates Susan Andrews (RELG), Barbra Clayton (RELG) and Toni Roberts (SOCI), will be teaching in an alternative space this academic year. Though still in its infancy, there is important research appearing on the effects of flexible classroom design and its ability to promote stimulation, individualization and naturalness in learning. The team wondered what use these insights might have for the Mount Allison community, and indeed their own teaching.

The Learning Lab (Hart 115) has been developed in partnership with Mount Allison University and Steelcase to reconfigure the classroom to include flexible and maker-space furnishing. The group will incorporate new pedagogies into their courses this year, as well as run experiments to gauge the effects of these changes in environment and learning style. They plan to publish their findings in the near future, and will be sending updates to those interested, via the R-PEACE newsletter.