Shirley Oakley
Charles Sturt University
The learning commons at CSU is conceived as a student centred facility that supports self-directed, non-facilitated learning – learning outside the classroom. It supports all the learning methodologies and technologies that students require. It encourages social interaction and provides a variety of spaces that encourage interaction, including spaces for collaboration and group work. It provides a single point of access to learning support services including learning skills, indigenous support, disability support and IT support, as well as the full range of library services. It allows seamless access to the University’s information resources both virtually and physically. It operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The focus of the commons is on the learning experience and the learning outcomes.
The construction of a new library on a green field site at CSU’s Thurgoona Campus provided the opportunity to create a learning commons from the ground up. The Thurgoona Learning Commons is designed to realise the concept of the student centred facility within an overarching learning and teaching precinct that includes purpose designed spaces for facilitated learning and purely social spaces. The commons occupies a central space in the continuum between informal, intimate, peer interaction and formal scholarly communication. The building design is based on a detailed pedagogical space map with different zones designed to facilitate different types of learning along a continuum from highly interactive social spaces to private single person study. Services are based on a four tiered model where tier 0 is self help and tier 3 is specialist, critical intervention. The organisational structures underlying service provision are invisible to the student.
The Thurgoona Learning Commons is the first building in the learning and teaching precinct to be completed. It has been occupied for a very short space of time. This presentation describes how closely the use of the building aligns with the pedagogical concept model on which it is designed and how the lessons learned at this early stage will inform refurbishments of libraries on other campuses to realise the concept University-wide.