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Regular version of the site

Spaces for Education: Open and Functional

On October 30th at a regular ‘Topical Research and Development in Education’ seminar at the HSE Institute for Educational Studies, Alastair Blyth, Policy Analyst at OECD Centre for Effective Learning Environments, talked about  ‘Changes in perception of spaces for self-education, innovation and knowledge exchange’.

What is the relationship between a town and its university? What do the rooms in an educational building tell us? What kind of spaces do we find between the buildings on university campuses and why do they matter?  Alastair Blyth, expert in educational policy and professional architect, raised these questions at the seminar“In some countries now, universities are seen to be a major force for regeneration, and redesigning a city’s space”.

The main task of a university building is to promote peoples’ interaction.The concept of education is changing - a university is not just a place where a professor teaches students - today professors and students are studying side by side, together. And this can happen in different ways. For example, the University of Melbourne that re-fitted an old lecture theatre – they took out the auditorium seats and put in round tables where they could work comfortably in small groups and listen to lectures. “Education is after all a group activity, a social process”, said Alistair Blyth and concluded,

 “a university should be built as part of the overall concept of a city space. Researchers who study educational spaces see it as their mission to get people out of closed spaces, give them the opportunity to  talk and interact, and to make  education into a more social activity’.

Participants in the discussion included Teresa Heitor, Professor of Architecture at the Technical University of Lisbon, John Worthington, Professor of Architecture at the University of Sheffield, Elena Bulin-Sokolova, Head of Construction at Skolkovo educational complex, and Irina Abankina, Director of the HSE Institute for Educational Studies.

See also:

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Card Index: Uberisation of Education

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HSE University and Sberbank Sign Cooperation Agreement

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Shattering the Family’s ‘Glass Ceiling’: Why Young People Go to University

Attitudes towards education are often inherited, with parents explaining to their children what university education can give them. They offer very pragmatic arguments—that higher education ensures a more successful career, interesting work and a good income. But there are also other arguments that should not be underestimated. At this time when many universities are holding open house, IQ.HSE draws on a study by HSE scholars Tatiana Chirkina and Amina Guseynova to explain the attitudes towards education that parents give their children and which considerations they might have overlooked.

Collective Conscious: Advantages and Drawbacks of Studying in Small Groups

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