A learning lab at the university. Why? How? What for?

The LETS Learning Lab project is part of a broader trend in which educational innovation is highly valued in higher education institutions.

By innovation, we mean a review of curricula and the way they are implemented (Bajada et al., 2019). It is therefore an engineering approach aimed at enriching social practices (Chevallard, 1982). It is, in fact, an innovation that goes beyond the technological dimension and is context-dependent (Lison et al., 2014). It takes various forms, affects different levels, and the challenge often lies in developing a culture of innovation (O’Banion et al., 2011).

As part of the LETS Learning Lab project, a consortium of four universities conducted design-driven research (Sanchez & Monod-Ansaldi, 2015) with the dual objective of developing a network of learning labs and documenting the design process, implementation, and challenges encountered. During this webinar, we will discuss the learning lab model that emerged from the consortium’s work and describe the implementation process based on experiences and observations gathered in Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, and Switzerland.

This project led us to define a learning lab as a physical, digital, and human space that offers teachers, students, and education researchers the opportunity to observe, discuss, experiment with, and evaluate learning and teaching methods at the university level (Sanchez et al., 2021). It also allowed us to identify the main challenges in designing and implementing a learning lab.

These challenges include institutionalizing the initiative, as well as building, developing, and sustaining a learning community.