WEBVTT 00:00:07.719 --> 00:00:10.439 Welcome to the LITE Bites podcast from the Leeds 00:00:10.439 --> 00:00:12.740 Institute for Teaching Excellence at the University 00:00:12.740 --> 00:00:16.140 of Leeds. This is Education Spaces mini -series. 00:00:16.199 --> 00:00:18.460 In the next three episodes, LITE Bites will 00:00:18.460 --> 00:00:20.600 be featuring guests with unique insights related 00:00:20.600 --> 00:00:32.320 to the Education Spaces programme. Hello and 00:00:32.320 --> 00:00:34.899 welcome back to the LITE Bites podcast. I'm Ollie, 00:00:35.020 --> 00:00:37.039 a graduate intern working in the Transformation 00:00:37.039 --> 00:00:39.719 Office and your host for today. This is episode 00:00:39.719 --> 00:00:43.079 two of the Education Spaces LITE Bites miniseries 00:00:43.079 --> 00:00:46.060 and today I'm joined by Emma, Lynda and Izzy 00:00:46.060 --> 00:00:48.359 who have all worked on a piece of research on 00:00:48.359 --> 00:00:51.299 seminar room provisions. Hello everyone and thanks 00:00:51.299 --> 00:00:55.460 for joining us today. Hi Ollie. Hello. So should 00:00:55.460 --> 00:00:57.159 we introduce ourselves? Yeah, I think that would 00:00:57.159 --> 00:01:00.859 be good. Yeah, excellent. So, yeah, I'm Emma. 00:01:00.899 --> 00:01:03.340 I'm Emma Peasland. I work in LITE, which is 00:01:03.340 --> 00:01:06.000 Leeds Institute for Teaching Excellence. And 00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:10.180 I got involved in this piece of work on flat 00:01:10.180 --> 00:01:14.019 floor teaching spaces or seminar rooms from the 00:01:14.019 --> 00:01:16.140 beginning. And I'll talk a bit more about that 00:01:16.140 --> 00:01:19.939 as we go through the podcast. But basically, 00:01:19.980 --> 00:01:22.510 I started off this project. in collaboration 00:01:22.510 --> 00:01:24.909 with Hayley Bullard who was at the time a research 00:01:24.909 --> 00:01:26.989 assistant in LITE and has since left and is 00:01:26.989 --> 00:01:31.280 now a lecturer at Huddersfield University. But 00:01:31.280 --> 00:01:33.420 yeah, that's me and my involvement in the project. 00:01:33.620 --> 00:01:36.219 And I'll let Lynda, do you want to introduce 00:01:36.219 --> 00:01:39.200 yourself? Hi, everyone. My name is Lynda. I'm 00:01:39.200 --> 00:01:42.299 a graduate intern working in the university's transformation 00:01:42.299 --> 00:01:46.099 office. And my job is support university's education 00:01:46.099 --> 00:01:49.700 spaces. And I am also involved in the seminar room 00:01:49.700 --> 00:01:55.159 evaluation research. Hi, I'm Izzy. I am also 00:01:55.159 --> 00:01:57.219 a member of LITE. I am a research assistant. 00:01:57.500 --> 00:02:00.900 And when I joined LITE team in February, I took 00:02:00.900 --> 00:02:03.180 over from the work Hayley had been doing previously. 00:02:04.099 --> 00:02:06.219 Cool. So thanks, everyone, for those introductions. 00:02:07.099 --> 00:02:09.639 So if you'd like to start by telling us a bit 00:02:09.639 --> 00:02:11.900 about the research and what you investigated. 00:02:13.039 --> 00:02:16.120 Yeah, cool. So we started this project in January 00:02:16.120 --> 00:02:21.639 2023 and LITE undertook this project kind of 00:02:21.639 --> 00:02:24.479 on a consultancy basis for the Education Spaces 00:02:24.479 --> 00:02:27.300 Programme. And it built on an earlier piece of 00:02:27.300 --> 00:02:30.780 work, which was a collaborative seminar space 00:02:30.780 --> 00:02:34.199 pilot refurbishment that was taken place in the 00:02:34.199 --> 00:02:38.129 summer of 2022. where some rooms within the university 00:02:38.129 --> 00:02:40.949 were refurbished with new furniture. And the 00:02:40.949 --> 00:02:42.949 intention of this furniture was that it would 00:02:42.949 --> 00:02:46.469 be able to support diverse layouts. So, for example, 00:02:46.469 --> 00:02:49.009 tables could be arranged in groups or they could 00:02:49.009 --> 00:02:51.689 be arranged in rows. And therefore, lots of different 00:02:51.689 --> 00:02:54.129 pedagogies or pedagogical approaches could be 00:02:54.129 --> 00:02:57.370 used in these rooms. So they were intended to 00:02:57.370 --> 00:02:59.969 create these kind of flexible spaces. Although 00:02:59.969 --> 00:03:02.789 in this pilot refurbishment, what was found out 00:03:02.789 --> 00:03:06.039 was that in some configurations there were limitations 00:03:06.039 --> 00:03:10.599 on the capacity of the rooms and in other configurations 00:03:10.599 --> 00:03:14.199 there were limitations on the amount of space 00:03:14.199 --> 00:03:16.340 that was in the room for example for people to 00:03:16.340 --> 00:03:20.719 move around and so I think that reflecting on 00:03:20.719 --> 00:03:23.939 that experience raised some questions more broadly 00:03:23.939 --> 00:03:26.759 about how different flat floors, teaching rooms 00:03:26.759 --> 00:03:29.259 or seminar rooms, and we're kind of using those 00:03:29.259 --> 00:03:32.939 terms interchangeably, how they can facilitate 00:03:32.939 --> 00:03:35.780 or hinder staff from achieving their pedagogical 00:03:35.780 --> 00:03:38.360 aims and how they're experienced by students 00:03:38.360 --> 00:03:41.379 and staff. And so we were asked to undertake 00:03:41.379 --> 00:03:45.419 this piece of research to find out a little bit 00:03:45.419 --> 00:03:47.680 more about that, like what's it like to learn 00:03:47.680 --> 00:03:49.620 in these different... room layouts what's it 00:03:49.620 --> 00:03:51.259 like to teach in these different room layouts 00:03:51.259 --> 00:03:54.259 and do they allow staff to achieve their aims 00:03:54.259 --> 00:03:56.259 in terms of the pedagogies they want to use in 00:03:56.259 --> 00:03:58.900 a session. Cool that's really interesting and 00:03:58.900 --> 00:04:01.360 I think such a piece of work would be really 00:04:01.360 --> 00:04:04.180 useful for the university to you know find out 00:04:04.180 --> 00:04:07.039 more about these spaces so would you like to 00:04:07.039 --> 00:04:09.889 talk about how you went about doing that? Yeah, 00:04:09.909 --> 00:04:13.750 sure. So what we did is we used a sample of flat 00:04:13.750 --> 00:04:15.870 -floored teaching rooms at the university and 00:04:15.870 --> 00:04:19.509 they're all teaching rooms that are looked after 00:04:19.509 --> 00:04:22.610 and timetabled by the main Student Education 00:04:22.610 --> 00:04:25.850 Service timetabling team. And we worked with 00:04:25.850 --> 00:04:28.870 timetabling to help to identify the rooms that 00:04:28.870 --> 00:04:31.050 we were going to use in the study and we looked 00:04:31.050 --> 00:04:34.069 for as many kind of different layouts as we could 00:04:34.069 --> 00:04:36.589 use. So we tried to use... pretty much all of 00:04:36.589 --> 00:04:38.529 the layouts that are available in flat floor 00:04:38.529 --> 00:04:41.569 teaching spaces. We wanted to get kind of like 00:04:41.569 --> 00:04:45.290 a wide variety of feedback and experiences from 00:04:45.290 --> 00:04:47.829 students and staff. So we got rooms from all 00:04:47.829 --> 00:04:50.920 around our campus as well. So in terms of the 00:04:50.920 --> 00:04:54.180 layouts, we had eight layouts in total and they 00:04:54.180 --> 00:04:56.699 considered things like whether students were 00:04:56.699 --> 00:05:00.860 in groups, whether the tables were arranged in 00:05:00.860 --> 00:05:04.720 rows, the shapes of the tables. So we had some 00:05:04.720 --> 00:05:08.319 rooms with these kind of trapezoid tables that 00:05:08.319 --> 00:05:10.459 could create a hexagon if they're arranged in 00:05:10.459 --> 00:05:13.579 groups, but can also be arranged in rows. We 00:05:13.579 --> 00:05:17.160 had rooms with those chairs with flip desks. 00:05:17.740 --> 00:05:20.899 We considered rooms that have multimedia or 00:05:20.899 --> 00:05:23.480 tech options. So there are several rooms in the 00:05:23.480 --> 00:05:27.240 university that have a table with a screen attached 00:05:27.240 --> 00:05:31.220 so that students can work on multimedia presentations 00:05:31.220 --> 00:05:35.259 or have tech available for when they're... undertaking 00:05:35.259 --> 00:05:37.980 their learning tasks in those rooms and we had 00:05:37.980 --> 00:05:41.220 a couple of rooms with a more unusual layout 00:05:41.220 --> 00:05:44.899 where they had a kind of a table with almost 00:05:44.899 --> 00:05:48.600 like a sofa seating around the table and we had 00:05:48.600 --> 00:05:50.800 there were just two of those rooms in the university 00:05:50.800 --> 00:05:53.779 but we included those as well in our study. Aside 00:05:53.779 --> 00:05:56.620 from that layout we had three rooms of every 00:05:56.620 --> 00:05:59.959 layout that we included in the study. And then 00:05:59.959 --> 00:06:03.680 in order to identify people and invite them to 00:06:03.680 --> 00:06:06.259 participate in the study, timetabling shared 00:06:06.259 --> 00:06:08.759 with us all of the scheduled sessions that were 00:06:08.759 --> 00:06:11.139 being held in the study rooms that we'd identified. 00:06:11.930 --> 00:06:15.449 in the first semester of the 2023 -24 academic 00:06:15.449 --> 00:06:20.129 year. And we looked at these data and we identified 00:06:20.129 --> 00:06:22.709 which modules had regular sessions in the rooms 00:06:22.709 --> 00:06:25.589 because we wanted to start collecting data sort 00:06:25.589 --> 00:06:28.389 of midway through the semester so people had 00:06:28.389 --> 00:06:30.870 an opportunity to get settled into the new academic 00:06:30.870 --> 00:06:34.069 year and everything like that. And we identified 00:06:34.069 --> 00:06:37.649 342 different modules that had regular sessions 00:06:37.649 --> 00:06:41.079 in the rooms. And we invited the module leaders 00:06:41.079 --> 00:06:44.480 for all of those modules to participate via email. 00:06:44.600 --> 00:06:48.800 And we shared with them what would be involved 00:06:48.800 --> 00:06:51.660 in participation. So what we were asking module 00:06:51.660 --> 00:06:55.680 leaders or the relevant tutor on the module who 00:06:55.680 --> 00:06:59.060 was asked to facilitate the data collection to 00:06:59.060 --> 00:07:03.610 do. was to firstly identify a session on that 00:07:03.610 --> 00:07:06.610 module in the study room where they could collect 00:07:06.610 --> 00:07:09.110 data. So data were collected with reference to 00:07:09.110 --> 00:07:12.389 one session rather than the whole module. To 00:07:12.389 --> 00:07:14.649 introduce the research to the students in that 00:07:14.649 --> 00:07:17.689 session and invite them to participate. by completing 00:07:17.689 --> 00:07:19.449 a student questionnaire which would be shared 00:07:19.449 --> 00:07:22.730 in the session and ideally we asked if they would 00:07:22.730 --> 00:07:24.689 be able to give five or ten minutes at the end 00:07:24.689 --> 00:07:26.410 of the session for students to complete that 00:07:26.410 --> 00:07:30.389 questionnaire but we also provided emails so 00:07:30.389 --> 00:07:33.310 in case it wasn't possible to provide that time 00:07:33.310 --> 00:07:35.370 in the session students could still be invited 00:07:35.370 --> 00:07:38.709 to participate via email and we also asked staff 00:07:38.709 --> 00:07:41.449 to complete a staff questionnaire as well with 00:07:41.449 --> 00:07:44.279 reference to that that particular kind of sample 00:07:44.279 --> 00:07:49.300 session. We had 54 modules that agreed to take 00:07:49.300 --> 00:07:52.519 part and that represented 16 % of all of the 00:07:52.519 --> 00:07:56.560 different modules invited. So we had two surveys 00:07:56.560 --> 00:07:59.269 that we used to collect data. And both of the 00:07:59.269 --> 00:08:01.110 surveys collected things like some demographic 00:08:01.110 --> 00:08:04.110 data and they asked both staff and students about 00:08:04.110 --> 00:08:06.910 things like the environmental conditions in the 00:08:06.910 --> 00:08:09.829 room. So things like heating, cooling, lighting, 00:08:09.949 --> 00:08:13.129 those sorts of things. They asked both questionnaires 00:08:13.129 --> 00:08:15.269 asked about technology and they asked about furniture 00:08:15.269 --> 00:08:18.889 provision. And then in the student questionnaire, 00:08:19.189 --> 00:08:21.589 students were asked about. their experiences 00:08:21.589 --> 00:08:24.269 of the session with reference to the different 00:08:24.269 --> 00:08:26.930 activities that they took part in in that session. 00:08:27.170 --> 00:08:29.730 So if they took part in group work, they were 00:08:29.730 --> 00:08:33.049 asked about how the room facilitated or hindered 00:08:33.049 --> 00:08:35.870 their participation in group work. If it was 00:08:35.870 --> 00:08:38.309 a session with lecturing, they were asked questions 00:08:38.309 --> 00:08:41.450 about how the layout influenced their experience 00:08:41.450 --> 00:08:45.639 of a lecturing activity in the room. And they 00:08:45.639 --> 00:08:47.559 were also asked about the preferences for any 00:08:47.559 --> 00:08:50.460 room layouts. In the staff survey, we asked about 00:08:50.460 --> 00:08:54.019 the sort of activities and pedagogies that staff 00:08:54.019 --> 00:08:56.759 had planned to undertake or to use in the sessions. 00:08:57.059 --> 00:08:59.919 And we asked them again about their, or as well, 00:09:00.039 --> 00:09:02.820 about their preferences in terms of room layout 00:09:02.820 --> 00:09:06.259 and whether they had particular preferences in... 00:09:06.679 --> 00:09:08.960 their ability to do particular things in a session 00:09:08.960 --> 00:09:11.139 for example to be able to move around the room 00:09:11.139 --> 00:09:14.100 to be able to sit at tables with students for 00:09:14.100 --> 00:09:16.299 example when doing group work and these kinds 00:09:16.299 --> 00:09:19.399 of things and the survey was open for that whole 00:09:19.399 --> 00:09:22.639 of that first semester it closed at the end of 00:09:22.639 --> 00:09:26.240 the the calendar year and at the time of closure 00:09:26.240 --> 00:09:30.559 we had 31 responses from staff and 195 student 00:09:30.559 --> 00:09:34.460 responses Cool. Well, it really sounds like you 00:09:34.460 --> 00:09:36.679 thought of everything in this research. You know, 00:09:36.720 --> 00:09:40.139 you've got every type of seminar room and also 00:09:40.139 --> 00:09:44.460 asking both students and staff. Sounds like you 00:09:44.460 --> 00:09:49.679 will have got quite a rich data set from this 00:09:49.679 --> 00:09:51.820 research. So could you tell us a bit about what 00:09:51.820 --> 00:09:54.419 you found out in this research? Yeah, sure. And 00:09:54.419 --> 00:09:56.200 actually, we should really credit Hayley with 00:09:56.200 --> 00:09:58.759 a lot of the work in that design phase as well. 00:09:58.860 --> 00:10:02.480 So she worked really hard on on that kind of 00:10:02.480 --> 00:10:04.879 design piece. But then moving forwards to thinking 00:10:04.879 --> 00:10:08.019 about what we found out then. And I'll let Izzy 00:10:08.019 --> 00:10:10.980 and Linda explain some of this, because we three 00:10:10.980 --> 00:10:13.580 of us collectively work together on the analysis. 00:10:13.720 --> 00:10:17.240 So I did a lot of the quantitative data. Izzy 00:10:17.240 --> 00:10:20.740 and Hayley did a lot of the qualitative data 00:10:20.740 --> 00:10:23.769 from students and Lynda did. a lot of the qualitative 00:10:23.769 --> 00:10:26.190 data from staff and then we brought all of those 00:10:26.190 --> 00:10:28.929 findings together. So I'll explain a little bit 00:10:28.929 --> 00:10:30.809 about the demographics which are a bit more quant 00:10:30.809 --> 00:10:34.029 and then let Izzy and Lynda explain what we kind 00:10:34.029 --> 00:10:37.230 of found out from the qualitative data. So in 00:10:37.230 --> 00:10:40.090 terms of students, we collected data from students 00:10:40.090 --> 00:10:43.049 in all of the faculties of the university, so 00:10:43.049 --> 00:10:45.210 all seven faculties and the Lifelong Learning 00:10:45.210 --> 00:10:48.470 Centre. But it's worth mentioning that of the 00:10:48.470 --> 00:10:52.509 195 responses that we got from students, 108 00:10:52.509 --> 00:10:54.889 of them came from students who were studying 00:10:54.889 --> 00:10:57.509 in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures. 00:10:57.549 --> 00:10:59.830 So there is a little bit of a kind of a skew 00:10:59.830 --> 00:11:03.620 towards that faculty in our data set. Most of 00:11:03.620 --> 00:11:06.240 the responses we got from students were from 00:11:06.240 --> 00:11:09.519 undergraduate students. So that was 124 of our 00:11:09.519 --> 00:11:12.320 respondents were undergraduate students. And 00:11:12.320 --> 00:11:14.879 of those, almost half of them were first years. 00:11:14.940 --> 00:11:19.039 And the remaining kind of sample was a range 00:11:19.039 --> 00:11:21.860 of students from between the second and the fourth 00:11:21.860 --> 00:11:25.070 year of their undergraduate degree. from staff 00:11:25.070 --> 00:11:28.429 again we got data from staff from all seven faculties 00:11:28.429 --> 00:11:31.549 and the Lifelong Learning Centre and so we got 00:11:31.549 --> 00:11:34.129 kind of a range of responses from across the 00:11:34.129 --> 00:11:36.929 university but with that bias towards people 00:11:36.929 --> 00:11:39.230 working or studying in the faculty of arts humanities 00:11:39.230 --> 00:11:42.940 and cultures um I'll hand over to Izzy to explain 00:11:42.940 --> 00:11:44.940 a little bit about what we found out from students. 00:11:45.820 --> 00:11:47.919 So for the students, I've just picked out a few 00:11:47.919 --> 00:11:52.519 of the key findings. So 50 % of the student respondents 00:11:52.519 --> 00:11:55.379 did say that they had a layout preference. And 00:11:55.379 --> 00:11:57.820 the main reason for these preferences were the 00:11:57.820 --> 00:11:59.779 physical factors of the room. So the comfort 00:11:59.779 --> 00:12:02.559 of the chairs was a big thing for them, as well 00:12:02.559 --> 00:12:04.360 as having a good amount of space. It was actually 00:12:04.360 --> 00:12:07.200 reported that overcrowding would have a negative 00:12:07.200 --> 00:12:10.970 impact on their learning experience. Also, it 00:12:10.970 --> 00:12:12.330 was really important that they felt they had 00:12:12.330 --> 00:12:15.649 an enabling and adaptable layout. For example, 00:12:15.809 --> 00:12:18.149 being able to rearrange the furniture depending 00:12:18.149 --> 00:12:20.870 on the activity, making it easier to talk to 00:12:20.870 --> 00:12:23.710 their peers and have a group discussion. But 00:12:23.710 --> 00:12:25.870 also, they did want to be able to clearly see 00:12:25.870 --> 00:12:28.529 the screens and the lecturer that was teaching. 00:12:28.929 --> 00:12:32.549 So here we can see a clear tension between the 00:12:32.549 --> 00:12:34.450 students' desires to be able to work effectively 00:12:34.450 --> 00:12:37.330 in groups, but also being able to see whiteboards, 00:12:37.389 --> 00:12:41.269 screens. and the tutor. So providing furniture 00:12:41.269 --> 00:12:43.649 that's quick and easy to rearrange and avoiding 00:12:43.649 --> 00:12:47.350 storing additional furniture seems to be an important 00:12:47.350 --> 00:12:49.490 consideration that we should think about in order 00:12:49.490 --> 00:12:52.509 to optimise their learning experience. So I guess 00:12:52.509 --> 00:12:55.909 that tension is because in some of the group 00:12:55.909 --> 00:12:59.250 layouts that we used, they were arranged so that 00:12:59.250 --> 00:13:01.570 maybe half the table faced the front of the room 00:13:01.570 --> 00:13:03.750 and half the table faced the back of the room. 00:13:03.970 --> 00:13:08.379 Yeah? Yeah. And I'm going to hand over to Linda, 00:13:08.539 --> 00:13:09.899 who's going to tell us a bit about some of the 00:13:09.899 --> 00:13:13.100 staff data. Thank you, Izzy. My part is about 00:13:13.100 --> 00:13:17.559 staff result. So I'm responsible to analyse 31 00:13:17.559 --> 00:13:21.460 staff questionnaire. And now I'm sharing some 00:13:21.460 --> 00:13:25.200 like main findings. So there are four main features 00:13:25.200 --> 00:13:27.480 for staff in the space to support their teaching. 00:13:27.539 --> 00:13:30.120 So there are collaboration, interaction, flexibility 00:13:30.120 --> 00:13:34.340 and mobility. In the following part, I will just 00:13:34.340 --> 00:13:37.600 from three perspective to further showing the 00:13:37.600 --> 00:13:40.740 like result details. So from layout and furniture 00:13:40.740 --> 00:13:45.240 part, the staff show the strong preference for 00:13:45.240 --> 00:13:48.659 the space can support the group work. They particularly 00:13:48.659 --> 00:13:53.179 mentioned the separate group seats. And they 00:13:53.179 --> 00:13:56.100 also mentioned it's really ideal in a space equipped 00:13:56.100 --> 00:13:58.980 with the lightweight furniture like chairs and 00:13:58.980 --> 00:14:02.039 tables with wheels so can easily move this furniture. 00:14:02.220 --> 00:14:05.379 to reorganize the space layout to suit different 00:14:05.379 --> 00:14:09.659 types of collaborative activities. And they also 00:14:09.659 --> 00:14:12.399 mentioned mobility is really important for them. 00:14:13.440 --> 00:14:16.240 Staff mentioned they really need space to move 00:14:16.240 --> 00:14:18.779 around to check students' work during the group 00:14:18.779 --> 00:14:22.120 work and also the ability to do some monitoring 00:14:22.120 --> 00:14:25.539 is also very important so they can just support 00:14:25.539 --> 00:14:28.460 students when they have any problems or they 00:14:28.460 --> 00:14:32.129 can just join the students' conversation. From 00:14:32.129 --> 00:14:34.730 technology side, it's really important in the 00:14:34.730 --> 00:14:36.990 space they have reliable technologies because 00:14:36.990 --> 00:14:38.970 some teachers mentioned that in the space, some 00:14:38.970 --> 00:14:41.750 technology does just not work because some like 00:14:41.750 --> 00:14:46.450 issues like microphone or lecture capture technologies 00:14:46.450 --> 00:14:48.929 did not work. So it's quite important to check 00:14:48.929 --> 00:14:51.950 the technology in the space. And also stuff mentioned 00:14:51.950 --> 00:14:55.740 like if they. The university can provide some 00:14:55.740 --> 00:14:59.500 training courses for them. It can help them to 00:14:59.500 --> 00:15:01.820 enhance the confidence to use those advanced 00:15:01.820 --> 00:15:05.419 technologies in the space. And also for the space 00:15:05.419 --> 00:15:08.120 environment, a lot of stuff mentioned in the 00:15:08.120 --> 00:15:10.299 space, the temperature control works not well, 00:15:10.360 --> 00:15:13.620 like the space either too hot or too cold will 00:15:13.620 --> 00:15:16.220 affect students' and teachers' space -using experience. 00:15:17.299 --> 00:15:20.100 The students definitely commented on that as 00:15:20.100 --> 00:15:22.980 well, that various rooms were too hot or too 00:15:22.980 --> 00:15:25.279 cold. They couldn't do the temperature control 00:15:25.279 --> 00:15:27.460 and they also couldn't open windows if they wanted 00:15:27.460 --> 00:15:30.820 to. Yeah, so based on all of the data that we 00:15:30.820 --> 00:15:33.080 collected from staff and students and the analyses 00:15:33.080 --> 00:15:36.759 that the three of us undertook, we identified 00:15:36.759 --> 00:15:41.120 10 sort of factors or considerations that those 00:15:41.120 --> 00:15:44.139 people who were designing flat forward learning 00:15:44.139 --> 00:15:48.049 spaces could consider. to be able to maximise 00:15:48.049 --> 00:15:51.029 the student and staff experience in using those 00:15:51.029 --> 00:15:54.990 spaces and also the ability of tutors to achieve 00:15:54.990 --> 00:15:58.460 their pedagogical aims. So the first factor was 00:15:58.460 --> 00:16:00.899 that there was a clear desire from both staff 00:16:00.899 --> 00:16:03.220 and students to prioritise room layouts that 00:16:03.220 --> 00:16:06.100 allowed students to work in groups. And the second 00:16:06.100 --> 00:16:08.440 one, layouts that allow students to easily see 00:16:08.440 --> 00:16:12.019 the screen or the whiteboard and or the tutor, 00:16:12.120 --> 00:16:14.799 depending on what's the focus at a particular 00:16:14.799 --> 00:16:19.789 time in a session. It would be a great idea in 00:16:19.789 --> 00:16:22.309 terms of the third point to provide furniture 00:16:22.309 --> 00:16:25.190 that can be quickly and easily rearranged. So 00:16:25.190 --> 00:16:28.490 if there are staff who want to use multiple pedagogies 00:16:28.490 --> 00:16:31.429 in a session, they can do that easily. So, for 00:16:31.429 --> 00:16:34.830 example, a mixture of lecturing and group work. 00:16:34.929 --> 00:16:37.929 You have a phase where perhaps you want everyone 00:16:37.929 --> 00:16:40.070 to be able to see the front of the room and then 00:16:40.070 --> 00:16:42.289 a phase where you want people to be able to cluster 00:16:42.289 --> 00:16:46.090 and work effectively in groups. The fourth point 00:16:46.090 --> 00:16:49.529 was that where possible, it's a good idea to 00:16:49.529 --> 00:16:51.789 allow for additional space in the room. So there 00:16:51.789 --> 00:16:54.029 were comments from staff and students around 00:16:54.029 --> 00:16:59.169 overcrowding. And so it's desirable for staff 00:16:59.169 --> 00:17:01.289 to be able to move around the room with ease 00:17:01.289 --> 00:17:03.809 and for students not to feel a sense of overcrowding. 00:17:04.230 --> 00:17:06.809 And related to that, the fifth point was that 00:17:06.809 --> 00:17:09.630 it's ideal to avoid storing additional furniture 00:17:09.630 --> 00:17:13.519 in flat -floored rooms. The sixth point was to 00:17:13.519 --> 00:17:16.160 prioritise layouts that provide adequate personal 00:17:16.160 --> 00:17:18.539 workspace for students. So when students were 00:17:18.539 --> 00:17:20.799 talking about overcrowding, they weren't only 00:17:20.799 --> 00:17:22.940 talking about the amount of people and furniture 00:17:22.940 --> 00:17:25.480 in the room, but also the amount of space that 00:17:25.480 --> 00:17:28.500 they had to work on. So, for example, some students 00:17:28.500 --> 00:17:33.440 spoke negatively or commented negatively on using 00:17:33.440 --> 00:17:37.180 flip desks that were attached to the chairs because 00:17:37.180 --> 00:17:39.460 they didn't have a large amount of space to be 00:17:39.460 --> 00:17:42.200 able to work on when they needed to. needed to 00:17:42.200 --> 00:17:47.160 do that. The seventh point was to consider providing 00:17:47.160 --> 00:17:49.480 the means to control heating and cooling in each 00:17:49.480 --> 00:17:52.819 room so that that environmental factor can be 00:17:52.819 --> 00:17:56.619 optimized for the users. The eighth point was 00:17:56.619 --> 00:17:58.799 to prioritise seating options that were designed 00:17:58.799 --> 00:18:01.140 for comfort. So there was a clear desire from 00:18:01.140 --> 00:18:03.759 students to have seating that was comfortable. 00:18:03.900 --> 00:18:06.460 And staff also commented on the fact that if 00:18:06.460 --> 00:18:09.240 students have comfortable seating, that might 00:18:09.240 --> 00:18:12.200 allow them to be able to focus and pay attention 00:18:12.200 --> 00:18:14.740 and therefore have a benefit for their learning. 00:18:15.980 --> 00:18:18.740 The ninth was to signpost any available training 00:18:18.740 --> 00:18:21.920 on using technology that's provided in flat floored 00:18:21.920 --> 00:18:23.839 spaces, which is something that Lynda was just 00:18:23.839 --> 00:18:26.680 talking about. And then the last and 10th point 00:18:26.680 --> 00:18:29.960 was to consider offering guidance to staff that 00:18:29.960 --> 00:18:33.880 links the spaces or layouts and appropriate pedagogies 00:18:33.880 --> 00:18:36.880 for use within them. So there was a comment from 00:18:36.880 --> 00:18:39.700 a couple of members of staff saying that it would 00:18:39.700 --> 00:18:42.579 be great to have a little bit of guidance with 00:18:42.579 --> 00:18:45.180 respect to that. So, yeah, so those were our 00:18:45.180 --> 00:18:49.220 kind. of 10 considerations that those people 00:18:49.220 --> 00:18:52.220 who may be using this data could take into account 00:18:52.220 --> 00:18:54.960 when designing future flat -floored learning 00:18:54.960 --> 00:18:58.759 spaces. Yeah, and I really like how clear each 00:18:58.759 --> 00:19:01.299 of these factors are and you can really see how 00:19:01.299 --> 00:19:04.660 knowing this information could help with the 00:19:04.660 --> 00:19:07.559 future design of seminar rooms and spaces like 00:19:07.559 --> 00:19:09.599 them. So it seems like there might be an opportunity 00:19:09.599 --> 00:19:12.700 to use this data in practice in the future to 00:19:12.700 --> 00:19:15.420 help design these spaces. And I can see a really 00:19:15.420 --> 00:19:18.720 clear link to the work that myself and Linda 00:19:18.720 --> 00:19:21.619 have done on the education spaces playbook and 00:19:21.619 --> 00:19:26.140 kind of trying to incorporate research into our 00:19:26.140 --> 00:19:30.140 decision making for future design decisions. 00:19:30.700 --> 00:19:33.200 So I just wondered, maybe Lynda, if you could 00:19:33.200 --> 00:19:35.599 talk to us about the opportunities to use this 00:19:35.599 --> 00:19:40.829 data in practice. Yeah, so I think seminar room 00:19:40.829 --> 00:19:43.410 research report is kind of valuable resources 00:19:43.410 --> 00:19:47.230 for future space design and evaluation process 00:19:47.230 --> 00:19:51.150 for University of Leeds. Because in this research, 00:19:51.190 --> 00:19:54.150 we include in the like data from both teacher 00:19:54.150 --> 00:19:56.890 and students perspective, like from like space 00:19:56.890 --> 00:20:01.250 design, furniture, space environment and technology 00:20:01.250 --> 00:20:05.970 to provide some practical suggestions. So I think 00:20:05.970 --> 00:20:08.750 these findings can guide departments like e -state, 00:20:08.930 --> 00:20:12.529 IT services and other departments might be related 00:20:12.529 --> 00:20:15.549 in future space design or refurbishment project 00:20:15.549 --> 00:20:18.390 to help them to optimize education spaces project 00:20:18.390 --> 00:20:22.769 and improve user experience. And also, as you 00:20:22.769 --> 00:20:25.829 mentioned, Ollie, we just create the education 00:20:25.829 --> 00:20:28.410 spaces playbook and I can see it's really worth 00:20:28.410 --> 00:20:32.269 to include seminar room research in the formal 00:20:32.269 --> 00:20:35.259 teaching spaces part. And for those people who 00:20:35.259 --> 00:20:37.960 didn't know the playbook, you can listen to our 00:20:37.960 --> 00:20:41.319 first episode. So basically, the Education Spaces 00:20:41.319 --> 00:20:44.079 Playbook is kind of space guidance reference 00:20:44.079 --> 00:20:47.220 book. So we include a lot of practical recommendations 00:20:47.220 --> 00:20:51.000 from internal and external reports and also use 00:20:51.000 --> 00:20:53.559 the PST framework, pedagogy, space technology, 00:20:53.819 --> 00:20:58.210 and user experience to further analyse each 00:20:58.210 --> 00:21:01.970 space. So it's kind of really useful resources 00:21:01.970 --> 00:21:06.509 for both academics and other staff from other 00:21:06.509 --> 00:21:09.769 departments who get interested in the user experience 00:21:09.769 --> 00:21:13.529 for education spaces. So yeah, so I can see it's 00:21:13.529 --> 00:21:16.269 really helpful and useful information in the 00:21:16.269 --> 00:21:18.829 future. Cool. That sounds like a really interesting 00:21:18.829 --> 00:21:20.529 piece of work and something that would be really 00:21:20.529 --> 00:21:23.089 useful for the future design of our seminar spaces. 00:21:23.609 --> 00:21:26.069 So thanks very much for coming along, you three. 00:21:27.279 --> 00:21:28.720 It's been really great having you talking with 00:21:28.720 --> 00:21:32.619 us today. Thanks, Ollie. Thank you. And be sure 00:21:32.619 --> 00:21:34.420 to come back for the next episode of the LITE Bites 00:21:34.420 --> 00:21:37.640 podcast. See you later. Bye.