CONTENTS
Introduction
The Current Situation
The Issues
The Strategic Context
Acknowledgements
Case Studies
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Towards A Strategy For Central Teaching Space
4 The Strategic Context
There is strong commitment at all levels at Leeds to maintain a strategic
framework for central teaching space development. `Fire-fighting' solutions to
teaching space problems are best avoided; although it is recognized that they
are sometimes unavoidable in view of uncertain planning assumptions at national
level.
It is widely recognized at Leeds that the strategic view of teaching space in
the university needs to be maintained in order to ensure that provision is
always fit for purpose. The strategy needs inter alia, to recognise
constantly changing user requirements and to support arguments for planning and
resourcing the means of meeting them. The `needs' of classes and the demands of
the timetable derive from academic pressures to maintain a range of degree
programmes and to provide teaching in many modes, with effective freedom for
the teacher to choose the modes he or she prefers. This often creates pressure
for more, or for larger, or for better equipped classrooms (which puts demands
on the timetable). The university needs a constant sense of the `space'
problems these competing pressures create. The academic bodies that approve new
programmes or encourage new teaching methods need increasingly to be to be
aware of the logistical constraints implicit in providing for such activity in
a fixed stock of classrooms with a finite budget for their operation and
maintenance. The planning and provision of non-teaching accommodation including
that for the services which support teaching, also requires careful
consideration by its inclusion into discussions which take an holistic view of
the processes and requirements associated with the delivery of learning to our
students.
It is plain that for the foreseeable future there will be a need for
`traditional' teaching space and a range of appropriate support services. There
is no sign in the short term, of a fundamental change in the undergraduate
learning experience in this respect. The predicted shift to more `individual'
learning techniques, which employ a wide range of learning methods including IT
and screen-based delivery of learning materials, is slower in coming than
perhaps we might imagine. Leeds is positioning itself for these developments -
it opened recently, for example, the Nathan Boddington Building, a `virtual'
learning centre capable of delivering a wide range of the curriculum to
networked learners. Whilst we are investing heavily in the development of
forward looking IT-assisted and network-based learning projects such as this,
we expect at Leeds to continue to provide high quality teaching environments
for groups of students for some time yet.
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