Making Space: Empowering Teacher Practice

Significant investment in educational infrastructure has not eliminated a disconnect between pedagogy and design. Consequently, new innovative learning environments can become sources of stress and confusion. Teachers struggle to understand the intent behind new school designs, while designers of these spaces need greater insight from educators to create effective learning environments. These parallel challenges highlight the necessity of establishing a shared language for design between teachers and designers.

Connecting pedagogy and space fosters new teaching approaches and spatial understanding. The Making Space process empowers educators by engaging them in co-designing innovative teaching methods using a shared design language. This acknowledges teachers as key drivers in activating novel learning environments. The invitation to collaboratively design practices for these spaces is an emerging method for enhancing teachers' skills within them. By establishing a common language between designers and teachers, this process bridges the divide between design and use, which is crucial for maximising collaborative opportunities between these fields.

Making Space has fostered a greater commitment among teachers to the design of their learning spaces. Participant interviews and co-design workshops indicate that the initiative has enabled educators to envision learning environment designs that move beyond conventional approaches. This enhanced engagement with design has stimulated discussions about teaching methods and enduring collaboration through design. The impact of Making Space has been acknowledged with several accolades, including the 2024 Learning Environments Australasia Award for 'Most Innovative Initiative' and the international ‘Kelly Tanner Innovation Award’ at the Learning Environments International conference.

A key feature of Making Space is its foundation in rigorous research that looked explicitly at the gap between the design and use of new school builds. Making Space began as a part of ‘Innovative Learning Environments and Teacher Change (ILETC), an Australia Research Council funded project (2016-2020). ILETC investigated the link between learning spaces and educational outcomes, aiming to equip teachers with strategies to maximise these environments. In turn, the doctoral research of Dion Tuckwell and Fiona Young, both ILETC PhD’s, underpins Making Space. Tuckwell's work emphasises teacher co-design in shaping learning environments, highlighting the need to understand their perspectives. Young's research explores how different spatial designs enable or restrict teaching and learning, identifying key design principles. Their combined research provides the theoretical and practical foundation for Making Space. Through this research, Making Space has recognised how designers can advance learning environment design by empowering teacher agency. Another key feature of Making Space is its deeply collaborative approach that enables educators to design and improve their learning environments. Recognising the limitations of purely top-down methods, this framework values teacher expertise as central to the design of new school builds.