Putting professional learning practice first in innovative learning environments

Abstract

ABSTRACT Considerable investment has been made to redesign built spaces in schools, with an assumption not based on research evidence embedded in both the architectural and educational literature that this will improve teaching and learning practices. In this study of 12 Victorian case studies in Australia schools were selected based on OECD criteria, not including the built environment, of an innovative learning environment (ILE). Yet each school had in their ILE redesigned the built space to enable different pedagogical practice. More collaborative teaching practice and pedagogical change emerged to be closely associated with redesigned built environments. Furthermore, for schools to fully benefit from the affordances of redesigned built space and connectivity of mobile technologies, putting the professional learning of teachers first was necessary to both initiate and sustain different pedagogical practices. Drawing on practice architectures theory, we illustrate how the conjuncture of the material-economic context of redesigned built environment and technologies, the cultural-discursive assemblage of discourses regarding the needs of twenty-first century learner-earners and the social-political context of policies enabled action-oriented teacher professional development. These conditions shaped the conduct of practice, the ‘sayings’, ‘doings’ and ‘relatings’ of teacher professional learning both within each school and across the Victorian public system.