10 A tale from the north: Moving away from formal learning spaces to active lear
10 A tale from the north: Moving away from formal learning spaces to active learning spaces
Moving away from formal learning spaces to active learning spaces
Auðbjörg Björnsdóttir and Ásta Margrét Ásmundsdóttir
Introduction
This chapter gives a review of the transformational process of moving from formal lecture rooms to active learning classrooms at the University of Akureyri (UNAK) from 2014 to 2016. UNAK is located in the Northern part of Iceland, with approximately 2,000 students. It was established in 1987 to offer university education, encourage research, development and innovation in rural areas of Iceland, and to tackle the problem of ‘brain drain’. The University has been leading in the teaching of distance and campus-based students in Iceland for 20 years. In recent years, the University has moved towards flexible learning models, with the focus on shifting from traditional lectures to more flexible and innovative teaching and learning. The Centre for Teaching and Learning (TCTL) at UNAK, was established in 2015 to support this initiative, and one of their first projects was the creation of developmental classrooms, with the aim of turning them into active learning classrooms (ALCs) over time.
Our example of the process of moving from a formal classroom to an ALC, took place in a first-year course, General Chemistry, in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences. This course had high attrition of around 30 per cent, low attendance, a failure rate of 40–50 per cent, and low student satisfaction according to course evaluation. After the instructor had used ‘flipped classroom’ teaching for a year, student satisfaction increased compared to the previous year, but student attendance remained low. The failure rate on the final exam was still around 40–50 per cent. In this review, we address the different obstacles we faced in the process, the importance of using flexible classrooms, and the importance of cooperation with key faculty staff and students. Students taking the course were surveyed and the results related to the ALCs are reviewed.
Literature review
Active Learning Classroom (ALC) is the term often used to describe a student-centred, technology-rich learning environment at the University of Minnesota (2019). ALCs are a modification of the SCALE-UP room layout (Student Centred Active Learning Environment with Upside-down Pedagogies) (Brooks, 2011). The SCALE-UP project started as a reform movement in the 1990s at North Carolina State University (2011) to change the teaching of large introductory physics courses by reworking the layout and technology of the classroom where these courses were being taught. These new learning spaces consisted of round tables with laptop connectivity for students, and good access to lab equipment. In addition to restructuring the learning spaces, the pedagogical approach and teaching material were amended to facilitate cooperative learning, in-class problem solving, and increased instructor-student inte