Classroom Setups Promote Thinking

If physical space is designed for learning and interaction in mind, it absolutely is impactful. Desks are primary elements of the ‘modern’ classroom as we know it. Usually, these learning spaces are simple and neatly arranged. They are the places for students to sit and read and write, lined up neatly in rows. While progress and upgradation have been in the design of schools and classrooms, it’s usually only in pockets of well-funded “future schools” with very little application for the rest of us.

There are various ideas which can be used well to solve a problem or promote a characteristic. They when being used well and many of these aren’t immediately reproducible in your own classroom. These ideas may not work for your grade level or furniture or budget or content area. But you can take it as an idea, learn from it, and use it (or not) accordingly.

Learning is considered as ecology. The design of a classroom design impacts classroom management, impacts lesson, impacts curriculum needs, and unit design impacts teacher personality, impacts technology needs, impacts literacy strategies, and teaching strategies, and so on. Each one of these possibilities will only be possible as well as you are able to possess the way you plan instruction and design learning experiences.

A Google Room or Maker Space can be set up and not promote thinking at all, or have students performing stunning cognitive acrobatics sitting by themselves on a cold floor. The idea here is that new and unique ways for setting up your classroom can offer help that you think differently about how and why you use certain arrangements, and then design more intentionally moving forward.

In fact, if one thinks of rows and rows of desks as having pros and cons, causes and effects, he or she will see that these rows lend themselves well to certain things (organization, paper passing, etc.), while not so well to other things (collaboration, movement). You’ve already (perhaps unwittingly) adapted your instruction to whatever design you normally use. You plan with it in mind. If you take a new approach, you’ll require to design with that in mind as well. And that’s where the actions and behaviors which promote thinking–interaction, movement, study, making, collaboration, thinking alone, and so on–become a factor.

By: Preeti Narula

Content: https://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/20-ways-to-setup-a-classroom-to-help-your-students-think/