As I gear up to start prepping for the start of a new school year, I was able to virtually layout my classroom and think about how I could redesign my teaching space. Below you will see a before and after picture of the basic structure of my second grade classroom. I found a website called, Classroom Architect, which supported my classroom structure due to the access to furniture that you more often see as well as the labels that are part of the structure, making it more easy for viewers to understand. As I was assigned to complete this task of redesigning my work place, I personally designed it in a way that is possible for me and my school district. When looking at the pictures, yes, there is not a major change. However, realistically I can't change where the cabinets, shelves or projector are. This causes my overall room structure to not be redesigned. The before picture is how I set up my classroom last year as a first year teacher and the after shows a new structure that I would like to try out. The major changes are the flexible seating that I would like to include as a teacher moving forward. This idea of flexible seating helps to better support students who may prefer their own desk or those who do better in a smaller group. With the flexible seating comes flexible seating options such as a desk where students can stand or a round table where students sit on an exercise ball. Due to the cost and resources available I think that the small changes that you can see are possible and something I will try as I begin to restructure my classroom for the new school year. After creating a visual of my current classroom, I worked through content that helped challenge my thoughts about how to set my students up for success and how a redesign of my room can benefit the learners. I watched a video, Experience Design, by Tedde van Gelderen. Tedde breaks down this idea of experiences that we as humans have during our life time, specifically discussing the events, flow, participation and emotion. I took these thoughts with me as I was redesigning my room. I specifically thought about the flow such as when my students make a transition from the carpet area back to their seats. Then I thought about participation, does the set up of my tables and chairs provide each student an equal opportunity to work with their peers and participate in table group discussions? Lastly, the emotion, I emphasized this idea my first year. I wanted my classroom to feel like a safe space for any student coming in. This emotion can be a huge factor for students success and overall mood. Creating a positive emotion in the classroom can help by providing each student was a seat that is accessible to the front of the room where I am teaching as well as the design and overall classroom presentation. I also read the article, A holistic, multi-level analysis identifying the impact of classroom design on pupils' learning, that discussed the importance of designing a room to promote success. This article stated that the success rate was, "linked entirely to six built environment design parameters, namely: colour, choice, connection, complexity, flexibility and light" (Barrett et al, 2013). I took these idea with me while designing my room as well as thinking of smaller details within my classroom such as the visuals that I have presented up on my walls, how the students supplies are labeled to feel like they are part of the room. While these ideas may not be presented in my re-design visual, this article brought to light these deeper findings that I will take with me to my classroom. As a viewer, I would appreciate any and all feedback. Are they better ways that I can arrange my furniture? An as educator have you found flexible seating to be useful? Let me know via my blog or on Twitter @MissCook14! Resources:
Gelderen, T. (2010, February 9). Tedde van Gelderen on Experience Design. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=208&v=BB4VFKn7MA4&feature=emb_logo Barrett, P., Zhang, Y., Moffat, J., Kobbacy, K. (2013, January). A holistic, multi-level analysis identifying the impact of classroom design on pupils' learning. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360132312002582?via%3dihub Cook, C. (2020, August 4). Miss Cook's Classroom. Classroom Architect. http://classroom.4teachers.org/ Cook, C. (2020, August 4). Miss Cook's Re-designed Classroom. Classroom Architect. http://classroom.4teachers.org/
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