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Space matters. For over 200 years we have been teaching in row-by-column seating. Many experts argue that this classroom style has conditioned both educators and students to ineffectively utilize space.
Researchers have said that space affects human behavior in powerful ways. So it is striking to realize that in education, empirical research on space is largely underutilized.
Typical classrooms are designed with one-quarter to one-third of the space allocated for the educator and the rest for all of the students. Hierarchy is built into the design; sometimes as an actual stage raised above the rest of the floor. As a student you are expected to sit and listen. You are not in control. You are to passively receive information provided by the educator. You sit facing forward looking at the back of your fellow student heads and at the front wall where content is being shared.
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As an educator, my role is to deliver information and control student experiences throughout the timeframe provided. I look out onto a sea of faces and it is my job to keep up with curricula demands and facilitate learning. Is this truly effective? Many would argue that this is a classic teacher-centered educating place, not a real learning place.
As stated by Patricia Wolfe in Brain Matters: Translating Research into Classroom Practice, brain science tells us unequivocally we have to move to learn; this movement helps push oxygen to the brain for maximum efficiency. Research published nearly 100 years ago in Democracy and Education by John Dewey argues for a more learner-centered approach, that is one in which the student is an active participant.
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However, few educational institutions are implementing pedagogical practices to address these important issues and focus on the learner. Current spatial designs aren’t keeping up. As humans we are some of the most adaptable creatures on the planet.
So, we just continue working and teaching and trying to learn in a centuries-old design paradigm – a rectangular box with row-by-column seating in a double-loaded corridor building. The power of the design of this place has kept us from actualizing the learner-centered paradigm. Architects, designers, academics must all take responsibility for this lack of innovation. Unfortunately, it is often our students who suffer as learning becomes a chore.
So what can we collectively do? In terms of Academic Leadership, we can stop teaching to the test and focus on critical thinking and creative problem solving experiences; it’s not about content, it’s about context! Keep politics at bay by knowing what empirical findings tell us.
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Educators can acknowledge and incorporate empirical research findings from cognitive neuroscience, learning research, environment behavior and for support to change the physical design paradigm as well as the pedagogical one.
It is important for architects and designers to help educate educators in terms of what is possible spatially; knowing what future practices can and should look like is important. Architects must educate themselves regarding this changing landscape as well as how empirical research should impact classroom design.
They must back the full design. They must insist that the interiors and furniture are a part of the holistic design to ensure the classroom emits the power of supportive, active learning environments.
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“Architects, designers, academics must all take responsibility for this lack of innovation. Unfortunately, it is often our students who suffer as learning becomes a chore.”
Steelcase Education researchers have added to the body of environment behavioral knowledge in the Planning for Higher Education Journal article. We focused on student engagement, a high predictor of student success and tested evidence-based design active learning solutions. We surveyed student and faculty relative comparing ‘traditional’ (row-by-column) situations to any one of our evidence-based design/active learning settings. Students and educators both reported the design of the place and what they were able to do in these environments made the difference.
It’s simple. Design the classroom environment to support active learning – pedagogically, with appropriate technologies and space. Don’t settle! Place can make a powerful difference.
And our students deserve the opportunity to truly learn.
Dr. Lennie Scott-Webber is the director of education environments at Steelcase Education.
Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato have been dead for 2,400 years, yet we teach the same way they did. Check out http://www.newteacherhelp.com for ideas on how to step outside of the “normal” teaching methods to use technology, critical-thinking and problem-solving instructional strategies, and much more! We teach a lot like we were taught, so the same tired methods are passed from generation to generation.
Often overlooked is the lighting in a classroom. Florescent light tubes in ceiling shining down onto students (often in a windowless room) put a lot of stress on humans and a tendency to have mild migraines is exacerbated.
I taught high school in a classroom so crowded, I could not walk along the aisles to assist students. Even when I tried, I risked falling over backpacks or students’ feet in the aisles because there was no room to put anything under the desks, and the desks were really too small to accommodate any but the smallest student. Big 6 foot boys with their size 12 feet? Forget it. When I retired, it had been announced that the class size the following year would increase from 30 to 35. Where were those extra desks going to go?
so any tips on various patterns that might be more effective?
My dissertation (Pierce,2009) provided a study on classroom space. I created a geosemiotic analysis rubric that examined visuals, interaction order and space use among students teachers and materials and their placement. When you are forced to teach in closets and boiler rooms you KNOW how important the place and space are to how participants ( teacher and students) view themselves and their learning.
I think you have all missed key points in this article. “As a student you are expected to sit and listen. You are not in control. You are to passively receive information provided by the educator.” I know that so-called “21st learning does not look upon teachers as educators but merely as facilitators with children in charge of their own education. Common Core exacerbates this philosophy. Where is the empirical evidence that children controlling what they learn has improved their education? Buildings and classrooms are not the problem. The problem is undereducated teachers allowing children to direct how and what they learn. Who is in charge here? Common sense has been missing from education for decades which is why the United States is losing this “war on real education”.