New Teaching And Learning Center Now Open
After 14 months of renovation, the new Teaching and Learning Center opened Aug. 24 in the Hammer Health Sciences building, providing students with 24-hour study space and contemporary classrooms designed to promote group learning.
The Hammer renovation adds 30,000 square feet of new classrooms and student study space, approximately doubling the amount of space at CUMC devoted to education.
“Enhancing our students’ educational experience is one of our top priorities,” says Lisa Hogarty, chief operating officer of Columbia University Medical Center. “We recruit the best students from around the world, and they deserve world-class space.”
The Teaching and Learning Center includes 24-hour study lounges, group study rooms, and individual study carrels. Fifteen new classrooms and a renovated library reading room are also available as study space when not in use.
A new entrance to Hammer on Haven Avenue gives students easy access to the center, the library, and the rest of the building. (The Teaching and Learning Center also can be accessed from the main Hammer entrance).
“The Haven entrance also defines a new focal point for campus life that will become a gathering place for students and faculty, essentially creating 'Haven Square', Hogarty says. In the coming years, a bookstore, sidewalk seating, and street improvements will be added to the area.
MODERN CLASSROOMS AND PODCASTING
The three largest classrooms are designed specifically to inspire interactive and collaborative learning, complete with group tables outfitted with a laptop for each student.
“When students work in groups, they start wonderful, provocative discussions and they learn from each other,” says pathology and histology instructor, Patrice Spitalnik, MD, assistant professor of clinical pathology and cell biology. “These designs encourage that interaction.”
Students helped in the design of the rooms during a focus group convened last fall by Dr. Spitalnik and Robert Sideli, MD, associate clinical professor of biomedical informatics and chief information officer at CUMC.
“We realized that rows of seats wouldn’t work with the new team-based curricula, so we had the students try out foamcore mockups of tables of different shapes and sizes.
“We knew the delta-shaped table was the best choice when the students spontaneously started a meeting during a break in the focus group,” Dr. Sideli says.
All of the new center’s 15 classrooms are also outfitted with wireless Internet access and some have flat screen monitors to enhance learning and a writing tablet that allows instructors to annotate their presentations on screen. Each room has a teaching podium including a camera to display paper documents on the classroom’s monitors.
Podcasting – another teaching innovation – will roll out with the opening of the new learning center. All CUMC classrooms, including those in other buildings, will be outfitted with a system that creates a video podcast of any session with a single click of a button. Podcasts will be available for download the same day.
GREEN RENOVATION
In keeping with CUMC’s commitment to environmental stewardship, the Hammer renovation utilized green materials and repurposed old materials for new uses.
The hallway floors are covered with terrazzo, a composite constructed from recycled stone and glass, while the classroom floors are topped with linoleum tiles based on renewable linseed oil. Both floor coverings are extremely durable and will last for decades, reducing the need for future renovation.
The wood paneling in lobbies and study rooms is constructed from bamboo, a fast-growing grass noted for its greater ability to sequester carbon than traditional hardwoods. Old metal shelves from the original library stacks were reused in the construction of new, space-saving mobile bookshelves.