Learning Behaviors and Learning Spaces

Abstract

What specific learning behaviors are important to students and faculty members? Does the campus provide spaces that foster these behaviors? Where are those spaces? Asking these three questions at six colleges and universities reveals notable differences in the ways students and faculty members answer them. Student and faculty member answers also reveal how narrowly and unevenly their institutions provide supportive learning spaces beyond the classroom. Their answers suggest a fundamental misalignment between learning behaviors identified as important and the campus spaces that can be a chief asset or a serious liability in achieving institutional mission.