A "Fly-by-Wire" High Tech Classroom
Abstract: In higher education, many educators have been exploring innovative technologies and pedagogical strategies to support increased student learning. These new technologies and strategies have led to new classroom formats, such as the SCALE-UP classrooms that support a flipped model for courses where students face each other in work groups rather than having students sit in rows facing the professor. As these innovations have been and are being developed, a key challenge is designing, creating, and supporting the classrooms that enable these innovations, as well as making changes to these classrooms as the innovations continue. Using the approach of mechatronics and the analogy of “fly-by-wire” aircraft in which software is used to control the plane rather than purely mechanical connections, this paper describes an approach to classroom design that emphasizes software rather than hard-wired connections. The challenges and both real and anticipated benefits of this approach are described.
Presider: Shekema Silveri, IFE Academy of Teaching & Technology