Inclusive spaces
Goal: Establish Audiovisual (AV) design standards to improve accessibility and inclusiveness in learning spaces.
Supports Strategic Priority 4:
Work to create accessible learning experiences according to defined standards, thus enabling inclusive teaching and learning.
In an effort to promote more consistent learning spaces and improve inclusivity of classroom systems and design, our classroom support team has developed a learning space rating system, adopted from Educause.
Using the rating system, assessments of all shared classroom spaces were conducted on the St. John's campus giving each space a particular rating, which will act as a baseline to measure against future upgrades and renovations, or used to compare to a room with other similar spaces.
The learning space rating system does not seek to prescribe specific pedagogies, but rather to evaluate the potential of a space to support a broad range of learning and teaching practices.
The following photo shows an active learning space our team collaborated on. These types of learning spaces are designed with flexible technology and seating to support a variety of teaching activities, providing an ideal environment to support high impact practices that increase student engagement and deepen the learning experience.