Making the Most of Your Learning Environment: A Guide for Teacher-Led Evaluation of Spaces and Practices

The spaces where we teach are more than containers for learning. They are active and influential forces shaping how students engage, think and grow. Yet most teachers have never been supported to evaluate whether their spaces are actually working, or shown how to make them work better. Making the Most of Your Learning Environment: A Guide for Teacher-Led Evaluation of Spaces and Practices changes that. Drawing on nearly two decades of research by the Learning Environments Applied Research Network (LEaRN) across Australian and international schools, Wesley Imms and Julia Morris offer a practical, step-by-step guide to help teachers and school leaders assess their spaces with confidence and purpose.

Structured around a clear evaluation template, the book walks educators through every stage of the process, from identifying a focus and writing a question through to collecting and analysing data and sharing findings with others. This is not a book that tells teachers what a good learning environment looks like. It is a guide to helping them work that out for themselves, in their own context, using research-informed approaches proven to work in real schools. For any educator who believes that space is part of their pedagogic toolkit, this book is the missing resource.

Wesley Imms is Professor of Education in the Faculty of Education and a Director of the University of Melbourne's Learning Environments Applied Research Network (LEaRN). His research focuses on how the design and use of school spaces influences teaching and learning, and he has authored approximately 80 scholarly papers, research reports and books in this field. He holds a research MA and PhD in Curriculum Studies from the University of British Columbia.

Julia Morris is Associate Professor in the School of Education at Edith Cowan University and Director of the LEaRN hub there, as well as an Honorary Fellow with the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne. Her research centres on real-world evaluation of educational practice, student engagement and the role of learning environments in supporting teacher and student outcomes. She is a recipient of the WA Institute for Educational Research Early Career Award.