Knowledge development and teacher professionalisation in Future Learning Spaces
A study evaluation in co-operation with teachers
Summary

Interactive and activating teaching methods are known to improve students’ learning processes and learning results. More and more teachers are therefore working to design activating education. Unfortunately, the layout of conventional teaching spaces often does not facilitate this type of education. The Future Learning Spaces project (FLS) aims to study how the layout of teaching spaces can contribute to the design of interactive and activating teaching, in accordance with Utrecht University’s vision.
This evaluation was conducted as a sub-project to gain knowledge and experience on how to optimise the layout and use of the current FLS. The study was conducted in co-creation with education experts, teachers, students, and technical- and administrative support staff. By jointly designing, implementing and evaluating lesson plans, the participants acquired knowledge and experience regarding the implementation of interactive and activating work formats in the FLS, which professionalise and support the teachers need, and how the layout of the current and future FLS could be improved.
Results
The sub-project resulted in:
- A coaching programme for teachers to help support them in designing and implementing interactive learning activities in the current and future FLS.
- A checklist of action items to optimise the layout of the current and future FLS in order to implement the interactive learning environment.
- Recommendations on how to design interactive learning activities in the FLS
Highlights
- Co-creative design, implementation and evaluation of lesson plans supports teachers in designing education in the FLS.
- The desired interactions between teachers (groups of) students and lesson materials during the lessons determine which physical and online facilities, multimedia and technologies the space must have to facilitate the interactions.
- The sharing of experiences, examples, good practices and visual instructions gives teachers guidelines for the optimal use of the FLS.
- Teachers and students are very enthusiastic about education in the FLS. The FLS facilitate and stimulate interaction between students during group assignments and collaborative learning. These spaces also stimulate interaction between teacher and students, which they believe contributes positively to the learning process and learning results.
- Teachers and students would like to (be able to) use FLS more often than is currently possible. Only two of these types of FLS have now been set up at UU and the requests for education in these rooms are much higher than the availability.