We have begun our last trimester of the year and have decided to involve the students more in the design, use and function of the classroom. In previous posts we mentioned formations the students move into depending on the goal of the lesson. However, we found that the formations were not being used often enough. And since the students have been using the room as long as we have, we decided to include them in our big brainstorm. We created the room with students in mind, but just like the space, we needed to be more flexible!
We posed the questions, how can we use the classroom to better meet your needs? We asked students to consider the following criteria while they worked.
- You must consider our class expectations for learning.
- You must think about how 6th graders need to learn and what is best, not what is best for socialization.
- You must work together as a group to come up with great new plans.
Students came up with great ideas, sketched new layouts and discussed the furniture in ways we didn’t anticipate. It was wonderful!
Last week we tried out new layouts and designs and plan to model success and failure with each. It was nice to encourage students to experiment and reassure them that if it didn’t work, we can always try another design. This was once again a reminder that this classroom is designed with student learning in mind and, at times, that means change to fit the learners!!
Below are the designs they came up with. We tried several and they just didn't fit. The students want to rotate designs and try each for a week. We love that they're excited about the room and the layout of furniture. We'll keep you posted with what worked best!!
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