A 21st Century Learning Space
Remake Your Classroom
Display:
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Genius bar
Activate back wall
Studio corners
White boards with one device for
immediate collaboration
Visual gallery/display at lower levels
Interactive displays
Only necessary items shown
Furniture:
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Easy to move around
Create space
Circle/kidney tables
Bigger tables
Matts
Big pillows
Comfy chairs
Circle of chairs
Yoga balls, stools
Shell shaped chairs that rock
Personality:
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colour
promote collaboration, student lead
learning, exploration, digital
technologies, creativity
lights off, lamps used
blues and greens have calming affects
Storage:
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Remove clutter
Not used in last year…toss
Individual white boards
Make containers, bins, etc easy to
identify
Critical thinking games ( labeled
clearly, lego, marble works, puzzles,e
tc)
Teaching Zone:
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Moved into class
Clean, efficient space
Useable
SMARTboard easily seen by all
Other:
“ Active Student Learning”
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classroom corners: critical thinking
corner, creativity corner
quiet space/ booths “ Cave space”
walking lanes
Tinker Station
Video booth from a fridge box
Questions to Consider:
1. What are your key routines and activities?
2. When are classroom successes amplified?
3. When are challenges seen by physical environment?
4. How do your students learn best?
5. Identify THREE priorities you would like to transform. ( Example: peer to peer
learning, environment of trust and comfort, flow and mobility, teaching zone
efficiency, storage, student furniture)
6. Decide what you feel is already working: ( keep class motos, beliefs, displays, etc)
7. What isn’t working in your classroom and brainstorm ways to tackle this issue.
8. What supplies and materials do students use most often? Brainstorm the best ways
to store them.
9.
Adapted from TheThirdTeacher+, http://www.edutopia.org/blog/steps-to-redesign-your-classroom-melanie-kahl (
December, 2103).
Mrs. Farrell’s Classroom Makeover
Displays:
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Take down anything that is not being
used
Move useable displays/etc to eye
view for students
Try to group displays by grades ( gr.
2 displays together and grade1
displays together)
Try to use neutral colours, and use
colours purposefully
Create a Wonder Wall
Activate the back wall bulletin board
( student writing continuum,
exemplars, student gallery, RAN
chart,etc)
Furniture:
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New lower white shelves for
students materials, books, etc
Get rid of big shelf by lockers
Use two bookshelves to create “
booth”
Use puzzle pieces for teacher zone
Carpet piece and cushions for
collaboration station
Lamps
Artificial plants
Personality:
A place where students lead their learning
in a collaborative, creative, and innovation
way
Storage:
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Baskets for reading books in
classroom
Baskets ( 9) for student duotangs for
subjects
Go through cupboards, filing cabinet,
binder shelf to see what doesn’t need
to be at school or kept
Think about how you would like to
be able to use your desk ( what is
most important for efficiency)
Stations:
 Collaboration station
 Teacher zone
 Presentation station
 The booth
 Walking lane
Note: Label the stations
Student Materials:
21st Century Learning Spaces
20th Century Classroom vs. the 21st Century Classroom
USA 1960’s typical classroom – teacher-centered,
fragmented curriculum, students working in isolation,
memorizing facts.
A classroom at the School of Environmental Studies, aka th
Zoo School, in Minneapolis. A perfect example of real-life,
relevant, project-based 21st century education.
Time-based
Outcome-based
Focus: memorization of discrete facts
Focus: what students Know, Can Do and Are Like after all t
details are forgotten.
Lessons focus on the lower level of Bloom’s Taxonomy –
knowledge, comprehension and application.
Learning is designed on upper levels of Blooms’ – synthesis
analysis and evaluation (and include lower levels as curricu
is designed down from the top.)
Textbook-driven
Research-driven
Passive learning
Active Learning
Learners work in isolation – classroom within 4 walls
Learners work collaboratively with classmates and others
around the world – the Global Classroom
Teacher-centered: teacher is center of attention and
provider of information
Student-centered: teacher is facilitator/coach
Little to no student freedom
Great deal of student freedom
“Discipline problems" – educators do not trust students and
vice versa. No student motivation.
No “discipline problems” – students and teachers have mutu
respectful relationship as co-learners; students are highly
motivated.
Fragmented curriculum
Integrated and Interdisciplinary curriculum
Grades averaged
Grades based on what was learned
Low expectations
High expectations – “If it isn’t good it isn’t done.” We expec
and ensure, that all students succeed in learning at high
levels. Some may go higher – we get out of their way to let
them do that.
Teacher is judge. No one else sees student work.
Self, Peer and Other assessments. Public audience, authe
assessments.
Curriculum/School is irrelevant and meaningless to the
students.
Curriculum is connected to students’ interests, experiences,
talents and the real world.
Print is the primary vehicle of learning and assessment.
Performances, projects and multiple forms of media are use
learning and assessment
Diversity in students is ignored.
Curriculum and instruction address student diversity
Literacy is the 3 R’s – reading, writing and math
Multiple literacies of the 21st century – aligned to living and
working in a globalized new millennium.
Factory model, based upon the needs of employers for the
Industrial Age of the 19th century. Scientific management.
Global model, based upon the needs of a globalized, high-te
society.
Driven by the NCLB and standardized testing mania.
Standardized testing has its place. Education is not driven
the NCLB and standardized testing mania.