Engaging with students as partners in education-space design
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15173/ijsap.v6i2.5024Keywords:
students as partners in space design, transitional education spaces, informal learning spaces, student ownership, student belongingAbstract
Engaging with Students as Partners (SaP) in areas of curriculum design and pedagogic consultancy is relatively well established. Here we present a case study of two recent projects at Imperial College London, a research-intensive science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) university, that have extended the SaP model to the design and delivery of modifications to education spaces. Using a research-informed approach and tested method ensured that the students remained active throughout the “twists and turns” of the project, rather than the more traditional snapshot student-consultation approach often taken early in the design process. Students experienced authentic partnership with staff, the space, and their department/institution more broadly whilst staff acknowledged that the quality of outputs significantly exceeded expectations at a fraction of the cost of engaging external design consultants. More broadly, projects such as these establish precedents for a more ambitious institutional approach to working with students as partners.
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Copyright (c) 2022 Mike Streule, Luke McCrone, Yasmin Andrew, Craig Walker
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