Four New Active Learning Spaces

As the way that students learn evolves, so must the modern classroom. This semester, Rutgers-New Brunswick has made giant strides toward this goal with the introduction of four brand-new, state-of-the-art Active Learning Classrooms (ALCs).  The ALCs are designed to facilitate interaction, collaboration, and other approaches to learning through which students can work with ideas and one another. Among these new rooms are two Interactive Lecture Halls and two Active Learning Classrooms.

Our newest Interactive Lecture Halls-Richard Weeks Hall 102 and Chemistry and Chemical Biology 1309-are designed to accommodate large classes in which lecturing is broken up opportunities for conversation and group work. Both rooms have tables and chairs that allow students to cluster and interact. Students who are working on projects can share their work to the room's big screens via Solstice wireless display sharing. Richard Weeks Hall 102, our most ambitious Interactive Lecture Hall yet, also has group tables with power outlets, microphones, and HDMI connections that students can use to project images. The room is divided into sections by whiteboard walls that students can use to do work.

Richard Weeks Hall is also home to two new active learning classrooms. Rooms 206 and 208 can accommodate 72 and 36 students, respectively, at group tables of nine. These rooms are based on the design used in other DCS Active Learning Classrooms on College Ave. and Livingston. The instructor is stationed in the center of the room, where they can easily move through the room and interact with students. Table technology allow students to display images on screen, work on tablet and wall-mounted whiteboard, and power up devices.

These four new rooms represent the first general-purpose Active Learning Spaces on the Busch campus and  are part of our larger goal to provide collaborative spaces in the locations where students need them, designed in a way to reflect the different teaching methods employed by faculty. To learn about all our collaborative rooms, visit the Active Learning Spaces page.