From the Director
Debra Lohe, Ph.D.

Learning can happen anywhere: in classrooms and clinics, in prisons and coffee shops, and across fiber optic lines and webcams. Particularly at a Jesuit institution, we believe that some of the deepest learning happens not in the classroom, but out in the community—in sites and spaces where learners become teachers, and conceptual understanding becomes concrete reality. In this issue of The Notebook, we invited contributors to reflect on the idea of “learning spaces,” broadly conceived, and their creative contributions highlight one important fact above all others.

For deep and lasting learning to occur, it isn't always the condition of the space that matters; it's the presence of the right conditions for learning. As long as there is someone in the space who knows things, others in the space who want to know those things, and some kind of structured learning experiences happening in the space, something educational will happen. Even more interesting, perhaps, are the spaces – or sites, as I prefer to think of them – where deep, lasting, transformational learning occurs.

A quick look at the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU) website on High Impact Educational Practices reveals the importance of meaningful, authentic learning sites (e.g., learning communities, first-year seminars, capstone experiences, service learning, etc.), sites that – and here is the really important part – engage students in meaningful ways. True sites of learning engage the whole student, empowering him or her to knit together the various threads of learning he or she has been doing into an integrated whole.

At SLU, there are all sorts of “high impact” or transformational learning experiences being created, in a variety of “spaces,” and SLU faculty have been experimenting with alternative sites for learning for as long as the campus has been here. Throughout its history, the University has occasionally been called upon to reconsider its “space” in mid-town St. Louis, but it has successfully made the case, time and again, that this place is the place where students can fully inhabit their journey, acquiring knowledge both inside the classroom and out.

As Lynda Morrison’s column makes clear, one of the single most important conditions for learning is “intellectual space,” space cleared out, space that makes room for new ways of experiencing the world. The CTE’s new innovative Learning Studio, which opened this fall, is one kind of physical space on campus where faculty are given experimental space in which they can try out alternative ways of conceiving of their classrooms. In just half a semester, we’ve already seen the Learning Studio help faculty to “Open the borders and let ‘They’ and ‘I’ become ‘We,’” to quote Hamish Binns’s contribution to this issue. The faculty teaching in the Learning Studio – our Innovative Teaching Fellows – are doing all sorts of exciting things that break down the boundaries inherent in more traditional classrooms. And the Fellows teaching there in the spring promise to do even more!

So far, the feedback from both students and faculty suggests that everyone is learning here, not just the students. And as images like this make obvious, teacher and learner become almost indistinguishable in the most dynamic learning environments. When teachers and learners switch places, there is an increased
potential for truly transformative learning. We hope this issue of The Notebook will stimulate your own thinking about the many “sites” where learning happens for you, and for your students. Whether in your office or on your iPhone, we hope you will continue to find new ways to engage students and create the conditions for learning.

(Learn more about the Learning Studio – and find out how you can teach there.)

Last updated 11.18.11

Learning Spaces

Volume 14
Issue 2

The Strangest Learning Space? A Maximum Security Prison
Grant Kaplan, Ph.D.
Theological Studies

Trench Warfare in the Classroom
Hamish Binns, MA
ESL Coordinator-Madrid

When Learning Can Be Messy
Shawn Nordell, Ph.D.
Biology

The Field as Learning Space: Epidemiology Abroad
Sarah Patrick, MPH, Ph.D.
Epidemiology

Take Me Out to the Ballgame: What Does Baseball Have to Do With Learning?
Bryan Sokol, Ph.D
Leah Sweetman, Ph.D.
Center for Service and Community Engagement

A Space To Grow Stronger
Barb Yemm, PT, DPT, OCS
Physical Therapy and Athletic Training

Conversations on Teaching Columnists
Ben de Foy, Ph.D
Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

Lynda A. Morrison, Ph.D.
Molecular Microbiology and Immunology

Deanna Marie Mason, Ph.D
Nursing-Madrid

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