Blended Learning Showcase

Contemporary learning environments

Our campuses offer contemporary learning spaces that range from formal spaces including lecture theatres, tutorial rooms, practical laboratories and smaller, collaborative spaces, to connected classrooms that link students across our region and beyond.

Contemporary learning spaces encourage active and collaborative learning experiences. These spaces need to be flexible to allow teachers and students to adapt to a range of learning approaches.

Learning spaces snapshots: technology, space, collaborative thinking

A learning spaces project supported by the Directorate of Learning, Teaching and Student Engagement captured examples of the effective use of learning spaces and learning in action at JCU. The study looked at how academic staff approach teaching using different rooms and technology to engage students in a variety of active and collaborative learning experiences. In a series of videos, staff give valuable insight into how the features of specific teaching spaces and technology enable different modes of learning.

Learning Spaces Snapshots are designed to be used for a variety of purposes, such as self-help resources for staff to explore good practice in the use of learning spaces and learning technology and pedagogy, learning resources for professional development programmes, and to promote active learning and teaching.

Selected teaching space snapshots are provided below. For further information about the snapshots project and to view additional teaching space videos, visit the JCU Learning Spaces Snapshots website.

Teaching at the COAL FACE

Communities of Active Learners:
Flexible, Adaptive, Connected, Engaged

Funded by an Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) Extension Grant, the JCU COAL FACE Project sought to understand the student learning experience in diverse learning spaces, both physical and virtual (online), at JCU.

A key output of the project, Teaching at the COAL FACE provides practical strategies to guide the design of active learning experiences in complex, multi-campus and distributed university learning environments. JCU is a multi-campus, regional university that offers courses across multiple sites to ensure students have access to relevant and high quality courses at their point of need. Some of the challenges addressed in the COAL FACE Project included maintaining curriculum consistency and providing active learning experiences across sites to meet professional accreditation requirements.

Download PDF - Teaching at the COAL FACE