UMass Boston

TEAL

The TEAL (Technology Enabled Active Learning) classroom was recently created on the first floor of University Hall (UH-75A) to facilitate active learning and innovative teaching approaches. The seating arrangement of 7 round tables promotes collaborative work for 63 students. The room includes walls that are dry erase capable, a central teaching station, 3 stationary computers on each table and power access for students with laptops. The TEAL room is a Tech II classroom with the addition of collaborative software which allows the main console to project to all computer stations/screens or project a table computer to the main screen. The system is also capable of allowing students to share their laptop or mobile devices to the main screen.

The TEAL classroom is only available to TEAL Fellows. The TEAL Fellows program has successfully run for the past 3 years with approximately 30 faculty completing the TEAL Fellows program. These faculty have taken advantage of the tools in the TEAL classroom and have implemented student-centered active learning pedagogies including project-based and team-based strategies.

Active Learning Center (ALC)

UMass Boston was awarded a Steelcase Active Learning grant in summer 2017, through which a room in Wheatley Hall (W-206) was equipped with $65K of active learning furniture.

The movability of the room facilitates collaboration. The breakaway rooms allow for more in depth group activities, team building, and observation. The maximum class size for the ALC is twenty six students.

In the room, all of the furniture is movable, the floor is carpeted, and an array of technologies are available. The furniture includes brightly colored desk chairs with buckets, swivel buoys and box stools, square, hexagonal and “verb” worktables, personal-sized dry-erase boards, and outlet trees. There is a mobile, tech-podium, which connects to a ceiling mounted projector. The projector displays on a large, wall-mounted, dry-erase board. There are also two wall-mounted screens with laptop connections.

In addition, there are collaboration and observation zones. Both zones are breakaway rooms connected via doors and large windows. In the collaboration zone there are two round coffee tables with dry erase surfaces, buoy and box seats, and a large, movable, dry-erase board. The observation zone room houses two rectangular observation tables and four rolling desk chairs.

Using TEAL or ALC

Faculty interested in using the TEAL or ALC for their class should contact their college scheduler.