First Questions for Designing Higher Education Learning Spaces1

We often start the design of learning spaces with service and operational considerations rather than with questions about the character of the learning we want to happen in the space. To correct this practice, six questions are here proposed that colleges and universities should ask first and persistently throughout the construction or renovation of learning spaces. Much of this discussion draws on the National Survey of Student Engagement; for another essay that draws substantially on NSSE, see the author's “Designing for Uncertainty: Three Approaches” in the March 2007 issue of the Journal of Academic Librarianship.