Most people see the learning environment as a given, but an increasing number of teachers, trainers and students recognise that they can be active shapers of the learning and teaching environment in which they spend their daily lives. Two eminent experts in the field will help you to do this by providing research, personal stories and clear examples to help you understand the key issues of learning spaces. The participants of the podcast are Dr. Erika Kopp, Habilitated Associate Professor at the Institute of Educational Sciences, ELTE PPK, Head of the Research Group on Educational Institutions and Program Development, and Dr. Orsolya Kálmán, Habilitated Associate Professor at the Institute of Educational Sciences, ELTE PPK, Head of the Research Group on Higher Education and Innovation.

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In the Hungarian-language Csomópont podcast conversations, we often touch on personal motivations and personal attitudes. This time was no different! What makes an individual feel good in a learning environment, where do table members learn well? – was the opening question at the beginning of the show. For Erika Kopp, in her own learning, a good learning environment starts with the issues of safety and personalisation. A good learning environment could be somewhat enclosed, perhaps with a “nest” character. Today, however, technical equipment is almost as important to her – for example, she could no longer imagine her own learning without the right educational technology (edtech) tools. For Orsolya Kálmán, there are several typical learning environments in which she feels comfortable and learns effectively. She states that there is more than one ideal learning environment for a person. For her, one is the immersive setting, where she likes to see nature while learning. On the other hand, she envisages a very different environment for group learning in collaborative development and projects. On the desk, pens, post-it notes, surfaces for sharing and processing ideas. For this type of work, she also likes the availability of technical tools in an online environment, for example, she likes the Miro app for collaborative online work.

HOW CAN WE DEFINE THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT?

For Erika Kopp, the most important thing in the definition is that when we think about teaching, we have several actors. These actors can be the student, the teacher and many other people and institutions who are part of the process. Today there are several schools of thought that the learning environment is the third teacher – after the parent and the teacher.

Let’s look at it through a well-known example. – In a school, the learning environment can be the classroom, its furnishings, the tools used in the teaching-learning process, including textbooks, notebooks and digital tools. These are all part of the learning environment and are complemented by the building and its wider environment. These factors all make up our learning environment and will all affect how we learn. They provide opportunities and in many cases force us to learn in some way, Erika explains.

According to Orsolya, the emergence of the topic was a reaction to the fact that the learning environment (beyond the classroom and beyond the school) was also being examined in a more holistic way. More specifically, this could include corridors, and in the world beyond school, formal and informal spaces are increasingly linked (even online) to the learning process. Almost anything that is not internal to the learner/student can be included. There are also views that the teacher and the community are part of the learning environment. The diversity and scope of these factors makes it very difficult to research the topic comprehensively, as it can encompass almost everything. 

The simplest way to identify possible learning environments is to ask the question “can a given environment be made into a learning environment?”. According to Orsolya, since any environment can be made into a learning environment, the important question is which learning environments the learners and teachers want to use. This question is also very important because it helps teachers to identify which elements of their environment they want to use to support learning.

WHAT DOES THE HOLISTIC NATURE OF THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT MEAN?

Holistic means that everything is connected to everything else,” Erika explains. If we look at it by example, it makes sense to think in terms of the whole school building. An important part of the topic is an older concept, the so-called “hidden curriculum” theory. The idea is that each element of education has a hidden message that we learn. If, for example, you have a school that says in its mission statement that it is very concerned with parent engagement, but it says “Parents are not allowed to enter before 4 p.m.” – that has a lot of messages that contradict the mission statement. Children and parents quickly learn through such an example that you don’t have to take very seriously what the institution’s leaders and rules say.

When we think about what it feels like for us to exist in a space, we don’t usually start thinking about the individual elements, but we have an overall picture, a feeling of the whole place,” says Orsolya. This experience or perception is always an overall, holistic feeling, where the individual elements can reinforce or refute each other, as in Erika’s example.

SOCIAL ELEMENTS OF LEARNING SPACES

Learning is almost always a social process in some form. Discussing the social elements is very important for Erika because it is thinking about this that can most often involve participants in the design of the learning environment. In Hungary, unfortunately, a “modern learning environment” is identified with, for example, an interactive whiteboard. But in reality there is no technological element that overrides the social elements, the needs and requirements of the people involved. 

According to Orsolya, we can design different learning environments based on which learning process we consider effective. There is now a wealth of research that shows that a learning process is effective if it follows personal learning goals, and that the individual has a say in its design. On the other hand, it is important to be able to learn with and by others in the community. These are two critical factors that help to explore the individual and social implications of the space.

We also see an amplification of this personal nature in the world. There is a growing demand from learners for silent rooms and to find a place in a large, busy institution where they can turn inward, think things through or even relax. This is particularly important if you cannot have this at home – which is often the case.

THE IMPORTANCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS IN LEARNING PERFORMANCE

An interesting finding from a major recent study is that the learning environments explains 16% in students’ school performance. Of this, 48% was explained by “naturalness”, i.e. natural light, adequate temperature, quality air, 28% by flexibility, such as the possibility of creating individual spaces, and 24% by other factors. Another exciting finding is that the same learning environments are rated differently by students and teachers, with students typically rating the design of spaces lower.

According to Orsolya, this also shows that although the teacher and his or her vision is the most important, it is not the only thing that matters. Although it will certainly have an impact on other factors in that it will probably also fundamentally determine what she creates in her learning environment. The same learning environment can be interpreted in very different ways, depending on our vision or even our job role.

This research confirms what reform pedagogy has been telling us since the 1920s: learning success starts from the student’s need,” Erika adds. Schools like Waldorf or Jena Plan and other reform pedagogies have long been designing spaces to support their own educational approach. They are now gaining validation, through this great research.

OPEN AND CLOSED EDUCATIONAL SPACES

Western Europe and the Anglo-Saxon countries tend to have more open educational spaces, while Central Europe tends to have more closed ones. Erika reported on a school visit to Finland, where the sight of large open educational spaces made her feel uncomfortable, because her attitude to open spaces was intimidating and alien due to her Hungarian learning background. Open educational spaces in Hungary might work really well in a transition where openness is somehow combined with a safe enclosure.

Orsolya says the results are mixed on the effects of open and closed spaces. An open learning environment may not be more effective at all. For example, noise is a typical weakness – but there are solutions. It is worth thinking about the two types in terms of flexibility and functionality. In an open environment, there is typically more flexibility to adapt to current needs. In enclosed spaces (e.g. labs or other spaces tailored to specific needs), it is often functionality that performs better. However, in an increasingly fast-changing world, there is a good chance that in the future flexibility considerations will override functionality. The issue may be further nuanced by the fact that SNI children often find it harder to thrive in open spaces, and primary school children are also more lost in large spaces than their older peers. But what is certainly an important value in open learning environments is transparency. There is no perfect recipe, all these factors need to be taken into account when designing an ideal learning environment.

Experts of the article

Dr. Erika Kopp Associate Professor at the Institute of Educational Sciences, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University

Dr. Erika Kopp has been teaching for 30 years in teacher training and at various levels of education. She has been Head of the Research Group on Educational Institutions and Program Development since 2020 and Head of the Edite Doctoral Program of the Doctoral School of Education since 2023. Erika is also a member of the governing board of the Association for Teacher Education in Europe (ATEE). Her main research and development interests include teacher education programme development and complex school development. In these areas Erika has been the subject leader of several national and international research and development projects, and has published articles in prestigious journals such as the European Journal of Teacher Education and a book chapter on Hungarian teacher education for Palgrave Macmillan. He is co-author of the chapter on the learning environment in the book Didactics, published by Akadémiai Book House.

Orsolya Kálmán, Associate Professor at ELTE, Head of the Research Group on Higher Education and Innovation and the Centre for Higher Education Pedagogical Methodology at the Institute of Educational Sciences

Orsolya Kálmán has been teaching in teacher education for more than 15 years, delivering courses on learning support, innovative pedagogies and learning environments in education from basic to doctoral level. She is the head of the specialisation Learning and Teaching in the international Master I Research and Innovation in Higher Education joint programme. Her research interests are mainly related to higher education pedagogy, professional development and learning of teachers, and innovation competences and pedagogies.

Farkas Bertalan Péter, editor-in-chief, podcaster, show leader

Knowledge manager, knowledge management consultant, trainer, project manager, but originally a teacher of geography and history. In his day-to-day work he provides global knowledge management for management consultants, coaches and international experts, and as an entrepreneur he works to promote the education scene in his home country and Europe. After a few years of teaching, she worked for government agencies (Educatio, EMET, Tempus) and headed the Knowledge Management team of the Tempus Public Foundation for almost 6 years. As Managing Director of Learnitect Design Ltd. he is involved in knowledge management and design of learning environments for knowledge transfer, online and offline learning management, design of community spaces and international project management. He conceived the idea for the Csomópont podcast in 2022, which finally became a reality in autumn 2023.

The Csomópont podcast is Hungary’s first knowledge management podcast, a place about knowledge and knowledge management, where original people, inspiring ideas, engaging community and corporate stories, carefully crafted lines and a dash of public thinking come together.

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Article written by Kristóf Györgyi-Ambró and Bertalan Péter Farkas, edited by Éva Tóth, editor-in-chief of Modern Iskola online educational magazine, the media partner of Csomópont podcast.

This content was produced with funding from the European Union. The opinions and statements expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the European Union or the European Agency for Education and Culture (EACEA). Grant agreement number: 2023-1-HU01-KA210-SCH-000152699.