Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies News

The Active Learning Center (ALC): What it means to you.

September 26th, 2013

Ecotones is a term used in ecology to describe the place in which two ecosystems touch or merge.  However, the term could also be used to describe what is anticipated in the Active Learning Center (ALC):  the touching or merging of the activities that typically have taken place in a classroom, lecture hall, or laboratory with what has traditionally occurred in a library.  Instead of single use spaces, often in different buildings, the ALC will merge the teaching spaces and learning/study spaces in a flexible environment.  The ALC will accommodate the teaching pedagogies and methodologies used in the Instruction Matters:  Purdue Academic Transformation (IMPACT) program and active learning on the site now occupied by the long vacant North Power Plant and the Engineering Administration Building (ENAD), across from the Bell Tower.

The ALC will combine the best of new classroom pedagogies and create a learning commons for the 21st Century  — a blend of centrally scheduled teaching spaces, library/information services, formal study spaces, informal learning space, and collaborative work areas.   Its design is being developed with assistance from students and faculty collaborators throughout Purdue who are coming together to provide crucial input for a unique learning facility.

Ranked as the Number One capital project by Purdue University when it was submitted for support to the Indiana Legislature, a request was made for support of $50,000,000, of the $79,000,000 project (includes cost of demolition of the North Power Plant and ENAD).  The Indiana Legislature allocated the $50,000,000 in cash at the end of the session in April.  The University has committed $13,000,000 toward the cost of the demolition required for the project, leaving $16,000,000 to be raised from donors.  As of September, approximately $2,400,000 has been committed.

Approximately sixty percent of the overall building will be dedicated to formal classroom settings, with the remaining forty percent committed to individual or collaborative study/learning space.   When classes are not being held, and during evenings/nights and weekends, the classroom spaces in the ALC will be available for study, as many of our classrooms are now.   An important difference in the new ALC is that it will be monitored by the Libraries to provide a secure and conducive environment for study.

During the day, students may work in teams or individually in the Libraries’ learning/study spaces in preparation for class.  After a class is over, a student may continue to work on what was begun during class in the Libraries’ learning/study spaces.  The ALC will also provide spaces for you as a faculty member to meet or work with students before or after class.

During the planning and design phase, it is anticipated that faculty will be asked to describe specific types of classrooms settings and to suggest technology that will further instruction in those settings.  In addition, faculty will be asked to recommend technology or configuration of learning spaces which will enable learning outside of class in the Libraries’ spaces. 

To see what will be possible in the Active Learning Center, you only need to visit existing ‘blended’ spaces at Purdue:

• Roland G. Parrish Library of Management & Economics in the Krannert Building offers visualization tools for collaboration, flexible study areas, the LearnLab, and areas that support different study preferences

• Three IMPACT classrooms in the John W. Hicks Undergraduate Library demonstrate effectiveness and efficiency of integrating classrooms into traditional library space

• In the Siegesmund Engineering Library, Potter Building, the Learning Studio  has been an incubator for piloting new active learning concepts.

 These Libraries’ facility transformations were designed in collaboration with the Center for Instructional Excellence (CIE), Information Technology at Purdue (ITaP), Discovery Learning Research Center (DLRC), and Facilities Planning.

The Active Learning Center will expand upon the successes realized to date and will evolve and adapt, serving as a living laboratory to refine and develop our strategy to plan future learning spaces in response to emerging trends in pedagogy.

The concept of a new centrally-located learning center on the campus will further reinforce Purdue’s leadership as an innovator in teaching and learning.  It will also help meet Purdue’s needs for learning space, collaborative study and active learning space over the next decade and beyond.

For more information, please contact:  James L. (Jim) Mullins, Dean of Libraries and Esther Ellis Norton Professor, at jmullins@purdue.edu.