Innovative Learning Environments

Concepts and Theories for Educational Spaces

Leon Benade|Chris Bradbeer
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Hardback
9781837081295
28 October 2026
£44.00
Available to order on 28 September 2026
eBook (PDF)
9781837081288
07 October 2026
£44.00
Available to order on 07 September 2026
eBook (ePub)
9781837081301
07 October 2026
£44.00
Available to order on 07 September 2026

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  • Description
  • Contents
  • About

This book contains an Open Access Chapter.

Innovative Learning Environments offers a comprehensive conceptual and theoretical toolkit to support thorough investigations of transformative, innovative, and non-traditional learning spaces in schools. In these spaces, innovative design and pedagogy are at the nexus of new school constructions and the redevelopment of existing schools.

Addressing a gap in existing research, contributions from leading scholars in Learning Environments research present clear entries elucidating concepts and theories that are relevant to the study of Innovative Learning Environments. Readers will find these entries valuable for practical application as they illustrate how these concepts and theories enhance practice within non-traditional schooling spaces.

This concise yet comprehensive volume is invaluable for both newcomers and experienced practitioners, scholars, or designers in the field of Innovative Learning Environments. By focusing on pedagogy and design, Innovative Learning Environments elucidates the origins and purposes of the spatial turn and its impact on learning.

Chapter 1. Concepts and Theories for Innovative Learning Environments; Leon Benade and Chris Bradbeer

  • Chapter 2. Activity Settings: Cultivating Innovative Classrooms; Peter C. Lippman
  • Chapter 3. Affordance Theory: Unpacking the Opportunities and Challenges of Innovative Learning Environments; Fiona Young
  • Chapter 4. Alignment; Pamela Woolner
  • Chapter 5. Architectural Determinism: Its Relevance to Understanding Spatial Relationships in Innovative Learning Environments; Jane Abbiss and Megan Taylor
  • Chapter 6. Architectural Evolution of Innovative Learning Environments: Global analysis; Peter C. Lippman
  • Chapter 7. Assemblage Theory and Practicum in Innovative Learning Environments; Emily Nelson
  • Chapter 8. Biophilic Design and Innovative Learning Environments: A Wellbeing Relationship Around the Pedagogical Core; Tim Baber and Benjamin Cleveland
  • Chapter 9. Built Pedagogy; Chris Bradbeer
  • Chapter 10. Can Innovative Learning Environments Promote Inclusion?; Angela Page and Jennifer Charteris
  • Chapter 11. Collaboration in Innovative Learning Environments; Jo Fletcher and John Everatt
  • Chapter 12. Crossing the Threshold: Immersive Spaces and Practice; Craig Deed 
  • Chapter 13. Culturally Responsive Design; Scott Alterator
  • Chapter 14. Defining What is Flexible: Furniture as a Concrete Example of Flexibility in Learning Environments; Julia E. Morris
  • Chapter 15. Deprivatisation and Surveillance in Innovative Learning Environments; Leon Benade
  • Chapter 16. Designing Inclusive Learning Spaces Through Affordances; Laura Cormio, Lucia Miranda, and Carolina Mele
  • Chapter 17. Innovative Learning Environments and Didaktik Theory: Content, Organising, and Space; Anneli Frelin and Jan Grannäs
  • Chapter 18. Innovative Learning Environments Fostering Active Learning Pedagogy; Mario Chiasson, Viktor Freiman, and Mireille Bertin-Post
  • Chapter 19. Lefebvre’s the Production of Space and its Implications for the Study of Innovative Learning Environments; Leon Benade
  • Chapter 20. Lively Space, Entangled Practice: New Materialism in the Innovative Learning Environment Practicum; Emily Nelson 
  • Chapter 21. Making the Complex Simple: The Concept of Typologies when Applied to Learning Environments; Wesley Imms
  • Chapter 22. Māori Learning Spaces: He Wāhi Ako; Georgina Tuari Stewart OPEN ACCESS
  • Chapter 23. Networked Learning; Lucila Carvalho, Pippa Yeoman, and Peter Goodyear
  • Chapter 24. Prototyping in Innovative Learning Environments; Mark Osborne
  • Chapter 25. Reconceptualising Middle Leadership in Innovative Learning Environments; Mark Osborne
  • Chapter 26. Spatiality as Part of Teacher Collaboration in Innovative Learning Environments; Riikka M. Alakoski
  • Chapter 27. Student Agency in Innovative Learning Environments; Jennifer Charteris
  • Chapter 28. Teacher Collaboration in Innovative Learning Environments; Megan Taylor and Jane Abbiss
  • Chapter 29. Teacher Spatial Competency; Marian Mahat 
  • Chapter 30. Teaching as Socio-spatial Practice: Combining Wenger and Massey for a Relational Theory of Learning Environments; Jan Grannäs and Anneli Frelin
  • Chapter 31. Territorialisation via Hidden Curricula in Innovative Learning Environments; Erfan Heidari
  • Chapter 32. User participation; Pamel Woolner

Leon Benade is a Professor in the School of Education of Edith Cowan University (ECU) in Perth, WA, Australia. Leon established a strong national reputation in New Zealand in Learning Environments research and as a result, developed several Australasian and international networks in this area of work.

Chris Bradbeer is a learning environments researcher and educational consultant based in New Zealand. He is currently a Research Fellow with the Faculty of Education at The University of Melbourne, Australia, working on several New Zealand, Australian and international research projects.