Show Notes
Before there’s curriculum or calendars or lesson plans, there’s the classroom space itself, stripped of last year’s posters and anchor charts. Where should teachers begin? We’ve got the answers.
In this back-to-school episode, editors Youki Terada and Steve Merrill review over 30 high-quality studies on classroom design and boil them down to five big takeaways, from how to use wall decoration to maximize student attention to why potted plants can alter student perceptions of the classroom—and the teacher, too!
Related resources:
Learn more about this episode
The Science of Classroom Design
Flexible Classrooms: Research Is Scarce but Promising
Designing the Ideal Classroom Space
The Impact of Classroom Design on Pupils’ Learning: Final Results of a Holistic, Multi-level Analysis
The Sweet Spot for Classroom Decorations
Telling the Story of Learning In Displays of Student Work
Making the Most of Your Classroom Walls
More from School of Practice
It started with a student writing a joke on a sticky note: “I hope we have no tests this year.”
Have you ever had a lesson get derailed by a power struggle with a student? Or is there a student in your class who you got off on the wrong foot with, and you’re not sure of the best way to repair the relationship?
Did you know that drawing can be a learning superpower—even for students who claim they’re not good at it?
Everyone makes mistakes—including teachers.
Like a lot of other educators, Nicholas Ferroni is trying to find his way back to a time before technology was the default classroom mode. He thinks he was a better teacher back then—and kids acted more like kids.