PurposePost-pandemic education will be impacted by spatial and technological shockwaves, alongside other areas of society. Significant expansion of online learning will build on skills developed by educators and students in this tumultuous time, and in response to emerging challenges and structural transformations. This paper explores an oft-overlooked skill that underpins contemporary teaching, and posits that “coordination” will find its way to the centre of this new online world. The paper presents research investigating the translation of tactics for good subject coordination to an online context.Design/methodology/approachThe authors reviewed academic literature that explored coordination in higher education settings, and recent grey literature identifying expected changes to post-pandemic university learning. The authors developed a survey instrument to investigate the translation of previously identified characteristics of good coordination, and tactics to achieve them, into the pandemic-driven online learning environment. Survey analysis explored the level of difficulty reported by subject coordinators for this translation online, as well as their suggestions of additional tactics or concerns.FindingsWhile the low number of respondents limits these conclusions, initial analysis suggests that the identified Tactics for Coordination can be applied with relative ease to online learning environments. At the same time, the expected burgeoning of online education identified an expected increase in demand for these skills.Originality/valueThe authors identified a lack of literature addressing subject coordination as a key skill, or evaluating coordination tactics, as well as a lack of resources for focused skill development. This paper addresses this gap, and prompts further and urgent response.
While relocatable, prefabricated learning environments have formed an important component of school infrastructure in Australia, prefabrication for permanent school buildings is a new and emerging field. This review of prefabrication for schools is timely. In 2017, Australia's two largest state education departments committed to prefabrication programs for permanent school infrastructure. In this paper we examine the recent history of prefabrication for Australian school buildings in the context of prefabrication internationally. We explore the range of prefabrication methods used locally and internationally and introduce evaluation indicators for school infrastructure. Traditional post-occupancy evaluation (POE) tools measure indicators such as indoor environment quality (IEQ), cost benefit, life cycle performance, and speed of delivery. In response to a shift towards more student-centred learning in a digitally rich environment, recently developed POE tools now investigate the ability of new generation learning environments (NGLEs) to support optimum pedagogical encounters. We conclude with an argument for departments of education to consider how prefabrication provides opportunities for step changes in the delivery, life-cycle management and occupation of smart green schools rather than a program of simply building new schools quicker, better, and cheaper.
The EduTool:IEQ is an evaluation tool that provides succinct and targeted information about the indoor environment quality (IEQ) of learning environments. It is suitable for the multidisciplinary groups involved in commissioning, designing, constructing, operating, maintaining and occupying school facilities. IEQ is an environmental issue concerned with the levels of lighting, thermal comfort, air quality and acoustics inside a space. In a school context, IEQ performance is important, as poor IEQ can trigger health and learning difficulties for students and adversely impact on the wellbeing of educators and their students. The EduTool:IEQ assesses and quantifies the performance of 16 IEQ components identified in the literature as having the greatest potential to impact on effective teaching and learning. The assessment involves collecting objective data about each, using environmental monitoring equipment. The findings of the evaluation are communicated using the EduTool:IEQ info-graphic, which is a data visualisation method. The EduTool:IEQ info-graphic is unique because it enables its users to immediately identify how the 16 IEQ components perform relative to recommended levels of industry practice. Giving stakeholder groups access to this type of information can enable targeted and cost-effective remedial works that benefit students and educators to be identified and undertaken inside the learning environments. The findings also provide a valuable source of feedback loops for built environment professionals seeking information about opportunities to improve their future practice. CONTEXT-THE IMPACT OF IEQ ON STUDENT WELLBEING This chapter outlines the development of a new post occupancy evaluation (POE) tool used to assess the indoor environment quality (IEQ) inside learning environments. POE "is the process of evaluating buildings in a systematic and rigorous manner after they have been built and occupied for some time" (Preiser, 2001, p. 9). POE tools are used by evaluators to control and document the inputs and parameters that are assessed as part of the evaluation process (Baker, 2011).
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