Higher Education Learning Landscapes and Campus Retrofitting

The project approachescampus environments as learning landscapes that are the total context forstudent learning and collaboration among user groups on-campus. The aim is toidentify the core features of learning landscape design and the retrofitting ofcampus environments to meet changing needs in expertise development. This isdone by finding the best practices of CARE processes (Campus Retrofitting) and how they are led.

Campus development is facing challenges whenemerging information environments along with distributed access to digitalplatforms change the whole way of studying and learning. Learning andco-creation can happen anywhere, anytime. The emergence of new online learningenvironments and digital solutions has modified the conception of time andspace yielding the illusion that the physical 'place and context where thelearning takes place is not very important' (Gros, 2016). Correspondingly, themain stream of research has focused on how students' learning is supported indigital online learning environments (e.g. Broadbent & Poon, 2015; Cho etal., 2016), and in blended learning (e.g. Bonk & Graham, 2006; Garrison& Vaughan, 2008). In our view, the whole campus with its surrounding urbanfabric should be seen as a network of learning spaces.

The design of campuses and embedded digitalaffordances should be evidence-based and research-informed, and teaching andlearning landscapes should be formed based on pedagogical principles instead ofthe still more usual estates- and facilities-led processes. The activitiesshould be more than cost-benefit analyses, giving space to discussions aboutthe nature, role and future of higher education. The project aims to developeducational leadership on campuses as a means to transform higher education learninglandscapes to support the development of future-ready expertise.

Prospective schedule

Autumn 2017 - Spring2018
- Retrofitting process and outcomes in Minervalearning landscape - case study
- Mobility visits to the University of Namibiaand Karolinska Institutet (Sweden)
- State of the art - Review of current researchand development literature on educational leadership and facilities managementfor campus development

Autumn 2018-Spring2019
- Developing a model of educational leadershipintegrated with facilities management to enhance CARE processes forfuture-ready, smart solutions and innovative campus learning landscapes

Publication plan

Research articles
Sandström, N., Nevgi, A., & Lonka, K.(submitted) Different Needs, Different Spaces - Campus Retrofitting for SmartCampus Landscapes, Journal of CorporateReal Estate

Sandström, N. & Nevgi, A. (lähetettyjulkaistavaksi/submitted) Tulevaisuuden yliopisto - käänteinen oppiminenkeikauttaa kampuksen, Yliopistopedagogiikka-lehti, in Finnish, [Future Universities- Flipped learning flips the campus]

Nevgi, A, &Sandström, N. (in preparation) Flipping the campus - educational leadership forsmart learning landscapes in higher education