BAUHAUS.INSIGHTS: The »Hybride Lernatelier« Provides a Space for Immersive Interactions, Encounters and Social Participation
Overnight in 2020, the coronavirus pandemic made it impossible to get together with people in the same place, work in shared rooms, or even attend lectures. A need emerged for something that hadn’t really existed before, or was only used in isolated situations. Online teaching, digital learning and digital classrooms. Without a doubt, the pandemic accelerated the digital transformation. And yet: Four years ago, the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar was not as technologically advanced as it is today, but we were still under pressure to offer quick solutions. Starting in January 2022, the »Hybride Lernatelier« was established step by step as a key element of the »Lernraum Bauhaus« project once the »Stiftung für Innovation in der Hochschullehre« approved funding from the federal and state governments in 2021.
Since then, we have seen the emergence of hybrid learning spaces. But what do these spaces look like? Who uses them? And how are they being used? Dr. Anne Brannys is responsible for coordinating and facilitating the »Lernraum Bauhaus« project. Together with her team, she is seeking and testing didactic strategies for practical solutions that can be experimented with in hybrid teaching and learning scenarios.
As part of our BAUHAUS.INSIGHTS series at the online Bauhaus.Journal, we asked Anne Brannys a few questions about how hybrid learning spaces are currently being used and designed at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar now and how cooperation can work in these spaces in the future.
Dr. Brannys, you are the »Lernraum Bauhaus« coordinator. What exactly is this project?
The focal point of our project is on interactions and creating opportunities to meet in hybrid spaces. We wish to exchange ideas and learn from one another. We want intimacy and participation. These subtle aspects of learning scenarios are difficult to measure and plan, but they are an important part of the learning process. Things that are intuitive and easy in physical spaces, for instance interaction with other individuals, objects and the space itself, pose a challenge in digital, virtual and hybrid spaces. We are at a point where video conferencing is part of our everyday lives and it can be done more or less securely.
But how can we establish contacts and connections when we have to bridge distances? How can we wok together in both analogue and digital spaces at the same time? How do we connect two analogue workspaces in different countries so that instructors and students feel like they are together in the same room? What technologies are used in which combinations so that learning and teaching can be carried out appropriately in hybrid spaces? And what changes when we consider the aesthetics and design components to be just as important as the technological and administrative aspects? The »Lernraum Bauhaus« project addresses precisely these questions and, together with students and instructors, is looking for answers through three sub-projects.
These questions can only be answered if we work together. »Lernraum Bauhaus« is, in no small part, a team led by Dr. Andreas Mai and made up of my wonderful colleagues Sophie Foster (Media Didactics), Jan Sieber (Media Technology), Andreas Wolter (Design Development), and our student employees.
The »Lernraum Bauhaus« is supported by three sub-projects: »Lernen am Objekt«, »Lernraum e-Studio« and »Hybrides Lernatelier«. What are the differences between these projects?
The sub-projects focus on various aspects of hybrid learning. »Lernen am Objekt« examines the notion that object-based teaching plays an important role at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. It also looks at the related question of how to transfer objects into various spatial contexts. »Lernraum e-Studio« provides support for students and instructors in creating their own teaching and learning materials.
The »Hybride Lernatelier« is a prototypical hybrid learning space and has been used for courses since the 2023/2024 winter semester. We can also see it as a literal studio, an open space for experimentation. This allows us to apply ideas and solutions in other spaces, on campus and beyond; for instance, in the redesigning of a hybrid learning space in the University Library, in the Language Centre, or as part of international teaching cooperations.
This means you depend on the needs of instructors and students, i.e. what »good« hybrid teaching and learning can look like. How do you identify these needs?
We try to establish a principle of encounter and exchange, and we appreciate suggestions from outside, for instance specific requests from the university. The »Lernen am Objekt« sub-project invited lecturers from all four faculties to participate in eleven individual projects. Project funding allowed staff to expand their own repertoire to include hybrid teaching using a specific, object-based approach. This project taught us a lot and we were able to simulate numerous learning scenarios. We regularly organize workshops and speak with students and instructors to become aware of needs, barriers, dreams and concrete plans.
The »Hybride Lernatelier« is open to anyone interested in public events at the university. We also participate in relevant specialist networking events and connect with other learning space planners. This topic is something nearly every university is dealing with at the moment and it’s exciting to see the differences in how it’s being dealt with, as well as the similarities in the successes and challenges across disciplines.
Your experiences make it clear that the »Hybride Lernatelier« is particularly important, not only because of its versatility. You will be presenting the »Hybride Lernatelier« at the University:Future Festival (U:FF) 2024 in June in Berlin. What exactly will you be presenting?
After a year of experimentation and isolated projects, we want to present a variety of possibilities. This means that we will be looking at what we’ve already achieved and what we can still offer using our prototype learning space. Our conference submission is called »Wunder- und Wandelraum – das Hybride Lernatelier erzählen« (wonder and transformation space – the story behind the hybrid learning studio) and that pretty much sums up what we’ll be presenting. We will be explaining the space and using it to narrate the project work for those who have not yet been involved. We will develop a communication and mediation format so that we can identify the needs of highly specific teaching and learning experiences in the hybrid space. These might be more general and things that many users have already experienced – for instance, integrating online participants into a seminar that is being held in person and perhaps supplemented by small group work.
But we are also looking at trickier issues, such as when work needs to be done on a single object in two rooms at the same time. What do we need in these situations? How can we react from within the space? Which elements of our repertoire of technology, furniture, light and digital infrastructure need to be brought together? The mediation element will demonstrate the possibilities that emerge in our »Hybride Lernatelier« and beyond through a game that combines spatial elements and learning scenarios.
Who can and should be using the »Hybride Lernatelier« now? What is currently possible and what can work in the learning space look like?
The »Hybride Lernatelier« is open to all students and lecturers from all faculties. Experts from our team have an initial meeting with instructors to develop ideas for how to implement their teaching idea, event or experiment. We use this approach partly because of the complex technological equipment of the so-called »Musterlernraumes« (model classroom), and party because we ourselves tend to learn a lot during these meetings. We appreciate adventurous and realistic requests. We are excited about building, programming, making music, presenting, discussing, reflecting and exhibiting together — and to simply providing background support.
To round off, we are daring to look ahead: How is the »Lernraum Bauhaus« going to develop? What are the plans for its future?
The »Stiftung Innovation in der Hochschullehre« has just approved our application for an extension. This means we can proceed with sub-projects that were put on hold, such as the »Lernraum e-Studio«, which we are hoping to develop into an open meeting space for students and instructors. Our goal is to establish a makerspace where, on the one hand, tools are available for students to create their own programme-relevant media productions and, on the other hand, instructors and students receive support in their own productions.
In general, our hope is to ensure that the opportunities the project generates for the university are more widely recognised and that the »Hybride Lernatelier« in particular becomes more effective in teaching and beyond. Whether this is through using the space itself or implementing solutions developed here in other learning spaces, we find these aspects equally interesting. The primary goal of the project is, after all, to fundamentally contributing to ensuring that learning and teaching in hybrid spaces is as organic as possible and enriches pure in-person teaching.
I can perhaps make a small surprise announcement that our final event is scheduled for late summer 2025, where we will be presenting and discussing our project results. Of course, this will also take place in a hybrid format so that we can once again expand our perspectives of hybrid spaces and play with ideas of how indoor and outdoor, campus and seminar rooms, the »Hybride Lernatelier«, parks and pedestrian zones, the Mensa, European partner universities and the odd home office can be connected. And how we meet and share knowledge in these different spaces.
Further information on the »Lernraum Bauhaus« project
Further information on the University:Future Festival
Further information on the »Stiftung für Innovation in der Hochschullehre«
The BAUHAUS.INSIGHTS questions on the »Lernraum Bauhaus« project were asked by Luise Ziegler.