While researchers broadly agree on what enables and constrains teacher professional learning, reconfigured large teaching spaces potentially create new processes and content for this learning. In this paper we draw on six years of study of teacher adaptation to these settings in 10 schools in regional Australia to identify the nature of, and key…

Teaching practices respond to the prompts, resources and inherent potential of a school's physical, social and cultural landscape. This study involved how teachers adapt their practice in response to contemporary flexible learning environments. An Australian case study focused on how teachers framed and enacted changes in practice by perceiving…

Evaluating informal learning spaces in higher education institutions needs to respond to the complex conceptual orientation underpinning their intention and design. This article outlines a model of participatory analysis that accounts for the conceptual complexity, lived experience and broad intentions of informal learning space. Further, the…

Modern school design continues to incorporate openness and irregularity as a means of achieving improvement. Irregular learning environments can act as a catalyst for student unsettling and enable possibilities of teacher practice. We outline a case study of teacher adaptation to irregular environments in a senior school setting. We argue that…

Personalized learning spaces are emerging in schools as a critical reaction to "industrial-era" school models. As the form and function of schools and pedagogy change, this places pressure on teachers to adapt their conventional practice. This paper addresses the question of how teachers can adapt their classroom practice to create…

The "open classroom" emerged as a reaction against the industrial-era enclosed and authoritarian classroom. Although contemporary school architecture continues to incorporate and express ideas of openness, more research is needed about how teachers adapt to new and different built contexts. Our purpose is to identify teacher reaction to…

Effective pre-service teacher education integrates theoretical and practical knowledge. One means of integration is practicum in a school workplace. In a time of variable approaches to, and models of, practicum, we outline an innovative model of school immersion as part of a teacher preparation program. We apply Fuller and Unwin's (2004) expansive…

This project sought to evaluate regional students' perceptions of their readiness to learn, assessment processes, engagement, extent to which their learning is personalised and to relate these to academic efficacy, academic achievement, and student well-being. It also examined teachers' perceptions of students' readiness to learn, the assessment…

This article examines the relevance of humor to student engagement in outdoor education. A sociocultural framework is applied to this examination, based on a view of learning as constructed, cognitive, embodied, and affective. A set of affordances of outdoor education as a contextually situated learning activity is identified along with related…