Resources

Meeting Notes - Feb 27, 2015

Agenda

Legend:

  • Assignment: highlight indcates assignment
  • Recommendations: italics

Attendance:

  • Bernie Wirzba and David Hinger from the Teaching Centre, as well as Carol Knibbs Scott, Kevin, Janice, Pam Adams, and myself.

Reports

Chair (Marlo):

  • NA

Kevin (Tech support):

  • NA

Ken:

  • NA,

Items for Action

Design Scale Up Room renovations for TH 341

  • We had our meeting today in TH 341 to discuss the possibilities of renovating TH 341 to a Scale Up room. We had We brainstormed technical possibilities and mapped out physical arrangement. We determined that we can probably fit 6 stations around that room which would accommodate 7 students per cluster (n=42 students). We talked about a 60 inch TV monitor, Smart Kapp board and regular white board for each cluster region. The big expenses would be the electrical work; lighting and video/audio sharing (so that groups or an instructor can share their screens). Back in the Fall, I had emailed Faculty and asked for their input. Here is a quick summary of the feedback:

    1. need flexible space - chairs and tables that could easily be rearranged
    2. need lots of whiteboard space
    3. it would be useful to have a front to the room (for presentation type of meetings/classes)
    4. most people seemed to like the concept of a Scale Up room
    The purpose of the renovation would be to pilot a flexible version of a Scale Up room as a way of facilitating group work in our classes. This facility would put us in a better position to evaluate the effectiveness of such a space in education and could be a model for how schools might incorporate such spaces into their facilities.
    I forgot to mention this in our meeting but I think it would be neat to have a glassed in area that housed a couple of 3D printers. This probably would not be part of TH 341 per se. Perhaps we can use part of one of the storage offices on that floor for this purpose. However, it would be visible from the hallway so that it would showcase works-in-progress as people walked by. I think with the new curriculum for Career & Technology Foundations (grad 5-9) and with the CTS curriculum, this kind of initiate would have traction and appeal to our students.
    The question is do we have money to explore this further? If we are given a budget to work within then we can move forward with researching options. Marlo .
  • Marlo was assigned to present this to Craig and see where it goes from there.
  • Scott would start researching the technologies that might work for this room