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This chapter traces the journey of the Faculty of Education through the pandemic, charting some of the challenges and opportunities in leading teaching and learning, research, international and engagement activities while maintaining its staff's health and emotional well-being. The chapter concludes with six significant educational challenges amplified during COVID-19 that must be addressed. These insights provide a road map for how higher education and academia can emerge from the pandemic fit for purpose and ready to contribute to our nation's and the world's future.

Significant investment in school infrastructure needs to be accompanied with effective professional learning and development of teachers to develop their spatial competency. These spatialised professional learning practices are critical for teachers to understand and use the affordances of flexible and agile design features that are increasingly being used in schools all over the world. Research has shown that this is a significant gap as schools and school systems focus on the school built without due consideration to the professional learning needs of teachers.The collaborative project between the Faculty of Education at the University of Melbourne and the National Institute of Education at Nanyang Technological University investigated the impact of a spatialised professional learning pilot program in one secondary school in Singapore. This study draws on an in-depth case study approach of the pedagogical and spatial practices of three teachers. Using quantitative and qualitative data from teacher and student surveys, observations and semi-structured interviews, this report provides critical perspectives on the impact of the professional learning program on their teaching practice, efficacy and mind frames.In summary, the professional learning program helped teachers become more aware of how the physical space can shape the learning experiences of students. However, they also noted challenges, such as a lack of suitable classrooms and furniture, class size, and heavy curriculum, which restricts them from using the affordances of the physical space as part of their pedagogical practice. The report concludes by discussing three practical implications for future practice: (1) the importance of providing a range of diverse furniture options in flexible and agile learning environments, (2) the inclusion of teacher and student voice in the design of learning spaces, and (3) the significance of future-focused spatialised professional learning and development practices. T

The vocational experiences and skills of young adolescents could be infused into formal education by identifying career competencies to be taught within the academic curriculum. Such curriculum practices that embed educational and career pathways must also include the perspectives of students and the community, particularly those from marginalised groups. Drawing on data from 111 teachers, principals, carers and students, this paper presents research undertaken to co-design career education lesson plans within an infused model of the curriculum for early Middle Year students from regional, rural, and remote Australia. The lesson plans and activities were designed to allow for meaningful self-reflection and goal-setting that could be seamlessly infused into the formal curriculum and help embed early-stage career education. The paper concludes by projecting opportunities and challenges for seamless curriculum integration, while pertinent to the Australian context, can also be read with broader relevance to other educational systems and schools.

The aim of the study was to explore the impact of furniture and spatial settings on teachers and students. Drawing on a case study action research approach involving surveys, two primary schools (Frangipani and Jasmine Primary School) within the Sydney Catholic Schools were involved as case study sites. This report provides a summary of the findings of the impact of furniture and spatial settings on teacher efficacy, teacher mind frames, student learning and student engagement as well as perceptions of students on the furniture and spatial settings. In summary, teachers’ perceptions of their mind frames, student learning and engagement increased after the introduction of furniture in the prototype learning environment. For one teacher, the perception of their efficacy did not improve after the implementation of the prototype space and furniture. In terms of students’ perceptions of the furniture, a large proportion of students agreed that they enjoyed learning and are more motivated to learn because of the new furniture. At Jasmine Primary School, a fifth of students felt that they were not motivated to learn because of the new furniture. Further in-depth study is required to find out the underlying reasons for this. Key themes that emerged from the qualitative data on the furniture and spatial settings focus on characteristics of furniture that afforded comfort, improved concentration and auditory qualities, supported collaboration, and capacity for choice. These are important considerations to drive decisions in school designs and furniture purchases. The importance of good furniture in a learning space cannot be underestimated. New learning environments and furniture demand and create new possibilities for teacher practices and student learning. The findings of the study, whilst limited in its scale, provides three crucial considerations relating to the importance of prototyping, professional learning and longitudinal data. These carry ramifications for wider und

The paper focuses on spatial identity of a teacher as a critical component of a holistic professional image. Teachers need to develop their spatial competency (and identity) to understand and learn how to use the affordances of school learning environments in order to realise its full potential to achieve the intended student outcomes. Professional learning that incorporates three key components of knowing what, knowing how and knowing with provides a conceptual basis for educators to develop their spatial competency, which in turn supports the being and becoming that is relevant to their spatial identity.

This chapter examines the challenges and possibilities of assessment practices in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programs. Informed by Bakhtin (1986), speech genres, dialogic approaches and a democratic lens to assessment, the chapter questions the nature and purpose of assessment considering the COVID-19 pandemic. New understanding of the concept of ‘relationality’ through pandemic experience provides opportunities for ‘democratic’ assessment is perceived as a point of departure in the learning process for both students and teachers, and not a destination. This perspective incorporates students’ diverse voices and agency and encourages assessment practices to promote not only instrumental aspects of learning, but also the epistemological and ontological layers of learning and being. Though this conceptual interrogation can be applied to any educational context across programs locally and globally, the focus is on ITE in the Australian context, due to the important role of pre-service teachers in creating and designing assessment practices. The chapter provides case study a example that enabled pre-service teachers to play an active and influential role in the development of assessment artefacts and practices. It concludes by projecting opportunities and challenges to teaching and research practices, locally and globally.

We investigated how learning environments-involving their physical, pedagogical, and psychosocial dimensions-influence students learning experiences in an Australian Faculty of Business and Economics. Qualitative data collection involved observations of eight classrooms over a semester, four focus groups with 21 students and interviews with six educators. The study provided deeper understanding of the dynamic and complex intrinsic interrelations of learning environment dimensions over time, addressing previous gaps in research. It identified and analysed spaces and practices, educational activities, and students' subjective experiences in different learning environments to illustrate how these multiple elements intersect and influence on the students' experience. The mixed methods used in the research helped to uncover a broader view of the learning environment and its interdependent influences over time on students' learning experiences. One practical implication is that any strategies to support a more holistic student learning experience through more effective use of learning environments should be developed at an institutional level.

This report summarises key research findings and recommendations of a 2019–20 National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education (NCSEHE) funded project entitled, “A student-centred approach: understanding higher education pathways through co-design”. Through the project, we worked closely with RRR stakeholders, including students, school staff (e.g., teachers, principals, career practitioners), and carers (e.g., parents, guardians) to understand the barriers and motivations around postsecondary pathways and careers advice. The project team utilised a participatory design methodology that integrated stakeholder workshops to uncover participants’ perceptions, experiences, and ideas on what resources or interventions could help to inform students’ decision-making in postsecondary educational pathways and careers. Our workshops used a series of scaffolded activities aimed to generate user ideas such as mind maps, role-playing, and storyboarding that helped stakeholders reflect and communicate to the research team.

At the beginning of ILETC a clear mandate existed in government and academic conversations for these ‘innovative learning environments (ILEs) to have a primary aim of fostering students creative and critical thinking, and communicative and collaborative practices; this often was embedded in ‘21st Century Learning’ ambitions. There existed, however, a worrying paucity of quality research to act as a baseline for understanding this phenomenon. For this reason, ILETC adopted an exploratory design in seeking to document correlation between ‘good’ teacher use of ILEs and high levels of student deep learning.

The aim of this project was to develop an impact framework for the Science Gallery Network (SGN). This work was commissioned by the Science Gallery International (SGI). The SGN has eight member organisations across four continents: Dublin, London, Melbourne, Bengaluru, Detroit, Rotterdam, Atlanta and Berlin. Whilst the network consistently sees unprecedented levels of accomplishment by its members, a testimony to their capacity, innovation and vision, the SGN does not have a systematic way to measure and monitor this impact. An impact framework that can assist with understanding and reporting the value of this impact will provide important recognition that the SGN has achieved what it sets out to do— bringing science, art, technology and design together to deliver world-class educational and cultural experiences for young people. This report details the robust consultation approach that was undertaken by the University of Melbourne’s project team—one that included a desktop review, focus group discussions, surveys and interviews—to ensure multiple perspectives were gathered on what could be considered a multi-faceted concept. The desktop review provided a thorough review and an environmental scan of the impact literature and its measurement. In addition, the focus group discussions and interviews provided a rich understanding of what ‘good impact’ means for the SGN and the implications of this to the measurement of impact outcomes. Five key recommendations are provided and summarised. Note that these key recommendations should be taken as a point of departure for further in-depth consultation throughout the wider SGN.

Purpose: Universities are investing billions of dollars in building infrastructure, with the design of learning spaces driven by technological developments and long-standing changes in pedagogical theory and practice. The aim of the study is to investigate the alignment between pedagogy and space by responding to a single research question: What is the relationship between the purpose, process, place and product of student learning in higher education? Design/methodology/approach: Drawing on Beckers et al.’s (2015) purpose–process–place framework, the study uses an online survey and photo elicitation method to gather perspectives from educators and students in one Australian university about their learning spaces. A hybrid approach consisting of inductive and deductive coding to thematic analysis was used to find repeated patterns of meaning. Findings: A total of 24 images of learning spaces were received from 8 educators and 16 students. Thematic analysis of the images and responses by participants highlights the importance of the pedagogical affordances of the learning environment and the product of learning, which are aligned to the purpose–process–place of learning. Research limitations/implications: This study provided a robust approach grounded in data to understand the alignment between space and pedagogy. Articulating students learning as an output of the alignment between space and pedagogy has important implications for the design of learning spaces and pedagogical practices in higher education. One limitation to the study, however, is noteworthy. The surveys had limited responses. Whilst the small response rates may not necessarily lead to biased results, it is acknowledged that a larger sample is likely to give more reliable results to enable the theory to be generalised. Originality/value: The study’s findings extend the purpose–process–place framework to include pedagogical affordances and the product of learning. The purpose, process, place, pedagogic

Supporting higher education participation across equity groups has long been a directed effort in global higher education practice and policy. However, to date, there has been little improvement in the rates of Australian higher education participation by equity groups such as regional/remote, low socioeconomic, and Indigenous Australian students. In this study, we visited four outer-regional communities in Victoria, Australia to utilise participatory design methods as an approach to explore participants’ ideas on the optimal nature of early stage higher education outreach interventions and how future resources or programs can be designed. Our case study of four schools showcases how participatory design with students (Year 7 and 8), school staff, and carers (e.g. family, community leaders) (n=101) helped to elicit participant feedback and ideas as well as support the subsequent co-design of future resources and outputs. Key findings included the need to address information gaps on the daily life of university students and the importance of context-specific advice and interventions.

A Day in the Life of a Student workshop is a design thinking workshop developed by DLR Group (an integrated design firm) and adapted by the Innovative Learning Environment and Teacher Change project at the University of Melbourne, Australia. The activities involve educators mapping out how one student spends his/her day in school and building a model of the learning environment based on this one student. With an emphasis on the visual learning that comes from modelling experiences, this workshop helps participants develop student-improvement focused practices in innovative learning environments.

The Teacher Mind Frames and Belief Systems workshop invites participants to explore how their beliefs shape the physical and experiential elements of the learning space they practice in. The workshop is based on the premise that teachers who exhibit the teacher mind frames as conceptualised by John Hattie1 are “more likely to have major impacts on student learning” (p.182). This workshop uses design thinking activities, specifically in the form of a persona tool, to help participants reflect on their mind frames and belief systems and then identify how this shapes their professional and teaching practices in innovative learning environments.

This chapter places the preceding papers into a wider context. As part of the Innovative Learning Environment and Teacher Change (ILETC) project, seven Transitions symposia were held in five cities across Australasia, Europe and North America during 2017, 2018 and 2019. Each aimed at investigating how teachers adapt to innovative learning environments. The resulting accumulation of approximately 150 papers by graduate researchers and research groups, of which this book’s chapters are a sample, constituted a reasonable representation of international thinking on this topic. When added to three years of ILETC case studies, surveys, systematic literature reviews and teacher workshops, the project team was able to identify consistent patterns in teachers’ spatial transition actions. This chapter places the material of this book within that larger picture, specifically in terms of one project output—the development of a Spatial Transition Pathway. The Pathway emerged from these data and can be seen as an output of the material sampled in previous chapters. Certainly, the considerable work teachers had been doing to re-conceptualise their pedagogies for new spaces (done both intentionally, and at times, without realising) deserved to be mapped as a resource for others undertaking this journey. This chapter makes the case that while each teacher or school’s journey from traditional to ‘innovative’ spaces is unique, there exists some common issues that most seem to face at some time, in some way. It provides a description of fourteen ‘grand themes’ that appear commonly through the data and describes how these can be organised in a way that provides temporal and theme-based strategies and tools, developed by fellow educators to assist in this transition. This final chapter leads the reader to consider ‘where to now’? It celebrates the fact that teachers have enormous capacity to work out how to utilise innovative learning environments well and provides a framework f

Transitions—a component of the Australian Research Council’s Innovative Learning Environments and Teacher Change (ILETC) linkage project—is a series of research symposia running in 2017 (Melbourne, Michigan and London), 2018 (Melbourne, Phoenix and Copenhagen) and 2019 (Melbourne). It brought together researchers, educators and industry partners to showcase research that explores the theoretical and practical issues involved in creating successful innovative learning environments. In 2017, the symposium opened the door to an international conversation about realising the potential of innovative learning spaces. Transitions 2018 continued the conversation by considering what teachers are doing (well) to transition from traditional spaces to innovative learning environments (ILEs). Transitions19 was a three-day trans-disciplinary, research symposium focusing on the journey schools and teachers make as they re-imagine and redevelop their learning spaces.

The Innovative Learning Environments and Teacher Change (ILETC) project is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Project funded for 4 years from 2016-2019. It brings together the expertise of leading researchers in education and learning environments and partner organisations in education and learning environment design and technology. The project is led by Associate Professor Wesley Imms, who heads a cross disciplinary team of researchers from the Melbourne Graduate School of Education and the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning at The University of Melbourne. The project is affiliated with the Learning Environments and Applied Research Network (LEaRN).

This research seeks to understand how teachers effectively engage in the design, development and use of innovative learning environments within primary and secondary schools in Australia and New Zealand. Innovative learning spaces are defined here as open, flexible and creatively-used spaces within which teachers and students collaborate to learn. There is seen to be a continuum of space types from entirely open, flexible spaces to closed, traditional classrooms that accommodate one teacher and one group of students. This paper reports on the results of one case study school located in the Australian Capital Territory. A case-study, mixed-methods methodology highlighted that innovative learning spaces may increase student engagement in learning and teachers’ use of evidence-based, student-centred pedagogies.

The paper introduces and explores the Plans to Pedagogy research programme, a three-year project focused on teacher capacity-building within schools. Plans to Pedagogy engages practitioner-researchers in the development of their and their colleagues’ spatial learning skills as they move into and attempt to take advantage of innovative learning environments. The programme involves teachers from eight schools across Australia and New Zealand. Still in progress, each three-year project addresses the individual school’s needs, while being supported by a more extensive university-situated “umbrella” research programme. This paper presents emerging findings from Plans to Pedagogy and discusses what is being learned about applied research in schools and how a research-focused approach to professional learning can enhance teacher learning and practice.

The Managing Change in ILEs workshop focuses on examining what types of supports are required to enable teachers to undertake change in their practices. The design thinking activities help participants visualise metaphors to help them describe the conditions in which changes in practice take place. These activities also describe the ideal system that would support teachers adapting and transitioning into innovative learning environments.

Archipelago of Possibilities is a strategy and professional development workshop created specifically to help teachers and educators uncover what they hold dear in their teaching practice and discover what they consider most important for a successful practice. This workshop uses travel as a metaphor to guide participants in reflecting on their practice, identifying successful factors for success, examining what is holding them back from achieving their ideal practice, and developing steps to create a future ideal teaching and learning space.

The Journey Map workshop focuses on helping teachers better understand the journey they go on when they transition into an innovative learning environment. Participants complete a ‘journey-map’ activity, which encourages peer discussion around their formative teaching experiences. This is followed by individual reflections on what was done, felt and thought when transitioning into new learning spaces. With an emphasis on the social learning that comes from sharing concrete experiences, this workshop helps participants be explicit about their journey and learn from the experiences of their peers. Due to the nature and focus of the workshop, participants who have prior experience transitioning from a traditional space to one more innovative will gain the most benefit.