Impact of Flexible Classroom Spaces on Faculty Pedagogy and Student Behavior

大多数大学教室都采用传统的讲座式布局，桌子和椅子排列在前排，或者圆桌永久排列在小组中。然而，一些大学正在建造未来的教室，这些教室拥有高度灵活的家具和集成技术。这些创新的教室可以重新配置为多种用途，如讲座式教学，让学生在小组中一起工作，并参与全班讨论。人们认为，这些灵活的教室自动导致更好的教学和学习，但很少有研究他们对教师教学法和学生行为的影响。在这个项目中，密歇根大学的五名本科工程教师将得到支持，因为他们从传统课堂教学过渡到新的灵活课堂。 这些教师将获得支持，以了解利用课堂灵活性的教学实践，并使他们能够更好地响应学生。课堂灵活性对教师教学法和学生行为的影响将是本项目的一个关键研究重点。这些研究将提供证据，为灵活课堂的设计提供信息，支持教师在这些灵活课堂中使用新的教学法，并最终改善学生的学习和行为。（包括使用主动学习和反应式教学，在五门本科工程课程中，教师引出学生的想法并对学生的想法作出反应）和学生的行为。这些课程都将在项目的第一年在传统的讲堂授课，并在第二年在灵活的教室授课。在项目的第二年之前和整个第二年，将进行专业发展，以支持教师使用灵活的教室。研究小组将通过一个新的课堂观察协议，捕捉主动学习和响应式教学的实例，通过教师访谈，调查教师如何制定响应式教学，并通过调查学生报告他们对响应式教学的看法，来调查教师教学法的变化。研究小组还将通过分析学生在传统和灵活课堂上进行小组学习活动时的话语，来研究学生对小组学习活动的解释（框架）。该项目将进一步提供一个标准化的反应教学观察协议未来的研究人员在工程反应教学的新生领域。它还将为工程学院，专业开发人员和教室设计师提供基于证据的方法来制定响应式教学，实施小组学习活动，并有效地设计和使用灵活的教室。

Most university classrooms feature either a traditional lecture-style layout with tables and chairs arranged in front-facing rows or round tables permanently arranged in groups. Some universities, though, are building classrooms of the future that have highly flexible furniture and integrated technology. These innovative classrooms can be reconfigured for multiple uses, such as lecture-style teaching, having students work together in groups, and engaging in a whole-class discussion. People assume that these flexible classrooms automatically result in better teaching and learning, but there has been little research into their effect on faculty pedagogy and student behavior. During this project, five undergraduate engineering instructors at the University of Michigan will be supported as they transition from teaching in a traditional classroom to a new flexible classroom. These instructors will be supported to learn about teaching practices that leverage the classroom flexibility and allow them to be more responsive to students. The impact of classroom flexibility on both faculty pedagogy and student behavior will be a key research focus of this project. Such research will generate evidence to inform the design of flexible classrooms, to support instructors using new pedagogies in these flexible classrooms, and ultimately to improve student learning and behavior.More specifically, this project will rigorously examine faculty pedagogy (including use of both active learning and responsive teaching, in which instructors elicit and respond to students' thinking) and student behavior in five undergraduate engineering courses. These courses will all be taught in a traditional lecture hall during the first year of the project and in a flexible classroom during the second year. Before and throughout the second year of the project, professional development will take place to support faculty in using the flexible classrooms. The research team will investigate changes in faculty pedagogy through a new classroom observation protocol that captures instances of active learning and responsive teaching, through instructor interviews that investigate how an instructor enacts responsive teaching, and through a survey for students to report their perceptions of responsive teaching. The research team will also examine students' interpretation (framing) of group learning activities by analyzing students' discourse during such activities in both the traditional and flexible classrooms. This project will further the nascent field of responsive teaching in engineering by providing future researchers with a standardized responsive teaching observation protocol. It will also provide engineering faculty, professional developers, and classroom designers with evidence-based ways to enact responsive teaching, implement group learning activities, and effectively design and use flexible classrooms.