Background & Context
Start and End date
East Ham Campus trial due to open March 2007. Stratford Campus trial site will go into construction over the summer 2007.
Type of project
Refurbishment to create two 'concept classrooms' on the East Ham and Stratford campuses. The East Ham development centres on three c.50m2 classrooms being converted into one new learning suite. The work at Stratford will begin summer 2007.
Case Study tags: learning spaces, refurbishment, newham college, london, further education
What was the context of the development?
Newham is one of the largest FE colleges in London and in the top 10 sized FE colleges in the country. The East Ham site is of 1960s construction and Stratford is a mishmash of buildings from the early 20th Century right through to construction in 2006.
The pedagogic origin of the project comes from the college's own internal quality assurance processes on teaching and learning. The desire was to move away from teachers adopting a straight didactic approach and develop more interactivity in teaching and learning with a learning activity areas approach.
The classrooms currently designed for both campuses are c.100-150 m2. East Ham is a longer narrower room (3 classrooms knocked into one) and Stratford is a square room (part of the former college dining room). At East Ham the classroom is on the fifth floor of a seven storey building. At Stratford it's within the grounds of the college, the dining room is centrally linked to teaching blocks and it's right in the centre of the college.
The concept is that the centre of the room, which is almost encased in a floor to ceiling glass wall, is a group learning zone and each of the four corners of the room is a different style of learning from self-research, from printed materials, through to PC based research, through to small discussion areas etc.
It moves away from the notion of a single lecturer in a classroom with a single group. There could be up to 40 or 50 learners spread across the space. There will be more than one member of staff there but it may be a lecturer as the lead facilitator of the teaching and learning and assisted by student learning advisers who are learning support staff so it would lean towards a team teaching approach.
The furniture is high quality furniture that allows the whole area to feel different from traditional college learning environments.
The notion is a multi-activity concept of promoting learning. In the centre space there may be a short lecture taking place. In different corners there could be groups breaking out into PC based research or supported learning. It is wholly wired up for web-based learning throughout the facility and there are cupboards installed in other parts of the area that will contain materials such as text books, videos or CD ROMs etc.
Because of the physical layout of the room and the use of floor to ceiling glass screens, which are curved, there can be sound separation between the areas and at any one point there could be 5 members of teaching and learning staff operating in the room.
The principle behind the concept classrooms was to get away from teachers adopting a straight didactic approach even when there was information and learning technology in the classroom such as interactive whiteboards and multimedia projectors. The present mode of teaching is still very much the teacher standing at the front of the class talking forth with not enough interactivity in the teaching and learning. So the concept is to adopt more of a learning activity areas approach.
Underpinning what they want to achieve in promoting a different approach to teaching and learning is a 'wow factor' i.e. that the learner walks into the classroom and is excited, stimulated and invigorated in their learning. This is driven through in the colour schemes and the materials so it's not just about the furniture that's been installed, it's new flooring, new lighting, modern bright colour schemes including fabrics on the walls the use of these glass screens, the use of high tech IT equipment and right down to the fish tank. In terms of green issues, sustainability plays a major part so there is a lot of wood instead of using metals, all the fabrics can be recycled and there are no plastics. All light fittings are low energy light fittings and heating is down to a bare minimum because the room is well insulated.
Funding Sources
Entirely self funded from college resources.
Cost of Project
The cost of the East Ham campus project is £150,000 + VAT for the building works, an IT investment of c. £50,000 inclusive, and a furniture budget of £50,000.
Technology
The facility is all hardwired because of some interactive desks within the unit. The PCs retract into the desks so the desk can be a clear topped desk for normal study or you can raise the PCs out of the desk to create an IT area. They are permanent fixed desks so it was easy to hardwire those desks. The college is looking at a wireless network for the staff so they can use their laptops as their office based activities within the room, but as yet they haven't put the wireless in.
Two plasma screens and an interactive whiteboard (a promethean whiteboard using the activate system on the whiteboard so students can actually work within the whiteboard, and answer the questions live and then it summarizes what's gone on in that lecture) have been installed.
There will also be a facility so that any lecturer can take over all the plasma screens, interactive whiteboard and all the PCs in the room to broadcast a message. If you need to get something out for example in the morning about a fire instruction that everyone needs to be aware of, the lecturer can take charge and promote that on every screen.
It's not all going to be a hard high technology area. There is also a tropical fish tank in the wall to lend a soft touch to the room and add to the harmony of the room. The fish tank is actually a part of the wall structure so as students walk down outside of the classrooms towards other classrooms it draws people's attention to what's going on inside the room and they feel they want to be in there and not in the other classrooms. It was a psychological approach as well to get people to go inside.
Adding Value
The college is in the middle of a wide-ranging information learning communications technologies review at present. ILCT investment is currently over £3 million a year with an IT estate of well over 2500 PCs and a considerable amount of investment in the IT network both in terms of facilities and in terms of ensuring it's robust so failsafe approaches, back up etc. The concept classroom approach is a trial before a hard look at what future investments will be. There will be at least a year's evaluation to see whether it is adding value to teaching and learning.
The physical estate comprises quite a mix of technical specialist learning areas from motor vehicle maintenance to construction through to fashion and textiles or science labs but there are a lot of generalist classrooms and if this concept works the college may invest further over future years to convert more rooms. If they were to do this in the whole estate of 230+ generalised classrooms then at the level of investment that this one classroom has taken the estimate is that it would cost c. £6 million.
Top Tips
Involve the end user as soon as possible in all designs because the people who are going to be in there delivering the courses need to be involved. Keep people involved and informed (staff and students).
Because half of the unit is a glass wall the students are asking lots of questions as they walk past and they want to know what's going on. Talk to both students who use the area and those who don't.
The three teaching rooms were simply chalk and talk classrooms. They had a whiteboard at the front with a data projector and chairs and tables. The project came at the right time during the year as they needed to replace furniture in other classrooms so everything was recycled.
There is flexibility in the timetabling which allows the college to take rooms out of action for a number of weeks if necessary so that didn't cause any problems.
Lessons Learned
The project is not at the stage yet where lessons have been learned but evaluation is an important part of the process.
There was no problem with deliveries as the long items on deliveries were pre-ordered i.e. the glass screens were ordered in October, the furniture in November and the contractor on site only started in January for completion at the end of February with the furniture and IT equipment in place.
One thing the college will need to be embarking on is an induction for the staff who will be leading the teaching and learning in the suite as it will be a very different approach to that which they might have supported previously. One faculty has been given priority use of the suite (business, health and cultural studies). The training will be run in-house by the faculty management and the QUILD staff.
Post Occupancy: Changes Made As A Result Of Feedback
The only change is to the shape of the interactive desks. Initially the plan was for circular desks. They actually painted everything on the floor first to see how it all fitted in and found that what looks good on a drawing doesn't necessarily look good or work in reality. The desk was changed to more of an oval shape at nil cost because the manufacturers provided both types of desk.
Contact details:
Philip.Badman@newham.ac.uk
Brian.Cooper@newham.ac.uk
Case study written 2006.
