Pedagogical bodies & technological spaces

I had recently gone to a workshop which was about designing future classrooms. Three faculties were involved as they’ll be moving to the new building with these future classrooms. Not many people turned up which was kinda surprising to me because I have seen quite a few staff members spoken up in earlier public forum about their concern for future classroom design issues. My feeling is that things are easier said than done. Events like public forums can easily attract a large audience. But when it gets down to doing something, such as workshop, the participation rate drops sharply. I think the event organizer can do a bit more by following up on those who have spoken at the forum, who have showed a clear interest, and keep them informed about later events, especially action type things such as workshops.

People are the hardest things to mobilize, especially in our ultra restless society when everyone’s got dozens of things on their to do list. I see this issue as not much different when we talk about motivating the students, to get them to not just participate passively in classes, but actually get some action going, engage them in learning activities.

Coming back to the workshop thing. The first interesting thing I’d observed was that the venue is not an exactly convenient, easy to find and spot space. It’s actually hidden away in one of those really old buildings which have heavy walls and compartmentalized rooms. Although it is convenient to the organizer because their office is located in the same building, just two floors above. The feeling to the environment is uninviting, enclosed, and the room was actually located at the end of the corridor, making it even more unambiguous. There is nothing to mention about the room that host the workshop, just an ordinary, rectangular shape room with movable tables and chairs.

In the early half of the workshop, the facilitator invited the participants to brainstorm ideas by asking them to come up with keywords that describe their ideal classrooms. Many of them mentioned the informal settings such as comfort, friendliness and warmth. And then they were asked to come up with the ‘non-classroom’ equivalents from their daily experiences. Places like cafes, Karaoke box, and even fish bowl was mentioned. Of course all these spaces exude a sense of informality and relaxation, and to me, sometimes can be too passive and too relaxing.

The interesting thing occurred when the staff were asked to include the functional features in their ideal classroom. The list became longer. Many high tech installations (movable furnitures, wireless connection), and state of the art presentation gadgets were on the list. All of a sudden, the ideas gone totally inconsistent with the earlier visions of the ‘comfort zone’. To me, the list of things don’t quite fit with those earlier examples of ‘non-classroom’ places. For one, these places don’t have a whole lot of ‘action’ oriented functional elements. I thought this area of tension/contradiction between a functional classroom and a sociable and relaxing classroom was largely missed by the participants, and which should be discussed and debated vigorously.   I would imagine there will be a lot more tension/contradictions exist among the workshop participants who came from the three faculties, who also share different beliefs, different practices and different work cultures.  People need to realize and understand these areas of differences, before they attempt to negotiate a common ground on important issues like classroom design.

To be continued…