Rows and Columns. Pair Up. Perpendicular Runway. Open toolbar. Social interaction is encouraged , making these classrooms ideal for helping children learn from each other.
It is hard to find a way to get all student looking directly at the teacher. Teacher-led activities or teacher modelling at the beginning of a less are therefore awkward to operate. Lessons tend to be dynamic and very engaging. Consider this format with a class that is reluctant to speak up. Because students are looking directly at one another, lessons tend to be very noisy and therefore hard to manage. Get table groups to race to tidy up after lessons in order to win rewards as a group.
Allow students to come up with a name for their table team. Personality clashes among students on the same table are amplified as students are often looking directly at one another. Differentiation can be easily achieved. Sort your students by ability levels and differentiate the lessons by each table. One distracted student can quickly distract their peers.
Beware of where you place your biggest misbehavers, ensuring they are teamed up with diligent students who will not be peer pressured into playing up. Resource sharing is made easy. Simply develop one resource pack per table. Given the emphasis on social interaction, you can create less printouts and nominate one person per table to read out activities to the other students.
This is not the most economical format. If your classroom space is small, you may find students have very little space between themselves and the table behind them. Teachers are able to exert control in these environments. Students are restricted from interacting with one another and always have their faces to the teacher.
Social learning is very difficult. If you have lessons that are designed for social interaction, students are limited to talking with the student to their side. Lessons that rely on videos projected on the front board will work well in this environment as all students should have a clear view of the front wall.
Resource sharing is difficult. The best option would be to have two students share the one resource. Compare this to table groups where you could have 6 to 8 students sharing resources in the center of the table. Great for promoting social interactions.
The workstations in this classroom layout tend to be sociable table spaces which encourage students to talk about their tasks. Requires a lot of preparation. Can cause stress for shy students. I have found that introverted students will often try to find somewhere to hide that is quiet for them to do their work in peace in these environments. Noisy and very busy. Students work in groups on different tasks, leading to noisy spaces.
Encourages creativity. The project-based premise behind open learning spaces encourages students to think laterally to work on their own projects rather than relying on teacher-centered instruction. Best with multiple teachers. As you will have students working at several different workstations at once, I often feel the need for more teachers or assistants in the classroom to help me cover all my bases.
Prepares students for life. Real life and careers often involve self-led projects much like the sorts of projects that tend to occur in workstation style environments. Difficult to help prepare students for tests.
Open presentation space. The space in the middle of the room is prime learning and teaching real estate. Make the most of the open space for modelling scientific experiments and having students give presentations.
This layout takes up a lot of space. The trade-off for having a nice wide-open space in the middle is that you may not be able to fit many student work desks into this space. This space is great for large group discussions as all students are facing one another. This space is not conducive to small group discussions. The best bet is to get students to move their chairs to the middle space to form smaller groups in the copious open area opened up by this format. The teacher has a good view of all students which prevents excessive misbehavior.
The lack of gaps between tables means students take a long time to walk around the space to get to their seats. Lessons involving powerpoint slide s, videos and demonstrations on the board at the front of the classroom work well with this method. Inner areas of the class the inside horseshoe may be inaccessible for students in wheelchairs.
Consider classroom inclusivity. Difficult students can be separated in their seating. This can help improve classroom management. Students have to walk a long way around the desks to get access to some areas of the classroom. Power is distributed around the classroom evenly as all students are facing each other in a circle.
There is a lot of floor space in the middle of the classroom that can be used for science demonstrations, etc. The person demonstrating in the middle of the classroom will always have their back to someone. Facilitates discussion and engaged learning in social situations. Chatty students may struggle to balance talking with their peers as well as focusing on work.
Mimics boardrooms to prepare students for the workplace. Not the most space efficient layout — you may struggle with large classes. Distractions are minimized to encourage engaged learning. Students cannot learn from their peers , seek clarification from each other, or share ideas to learn together. Students are unlikely to cheat or chat with their peers. Teacher has very strong control over the class. Teacher can control students in this layout well to encourage either individual or paired-up activities.
Students are all facing the same direction making it easy to do front-of-class presentations and modeled teaching. There tends to be not much floor space when this layout is used.
If students need to look at the board at the front of the class, students toward the front of the class have a bad viewing angle. Students are split into two groups where debates can take place or where you can differentiate content between two groups. Mobility can be difficult for students wanting to get in and out of their spots. Students at the far end of one row will find it hard to communicate with students at the other far end of the row.
All students are looking directly at the central presentation area of the classroom. It is hard to get students into small groups for sociocultural learning opportunities. Teachers can maintain control over the class as students are less able to talk to one another. Another way to do the rainbow color scheme and you can also gather some inspiration from the fun crayon theme that this teacher has going on.
I saved my favorite for last. The details in this library are amazing. I love the pink cart so the kids know where to return the books and how cute is the pillow container, the kids can grab their favorite pillow and book get comfy and read. Below are some of my favorite containers to keep your bookshelf looking as picture perfect as the ones I just showed you. It helps to start the year being as organized as you can. That way the kids know where everything goes. I think when it looks nice, it gives you and the students extra motivation to keep it that way.
These teachers have found a way for organization to be beautiful. Read on to discover ideas to organize all the stuff, find the perfect containers, labels, file folders and more. This teacher has got her pretty bins and teacher cart ready to get filled up!
There is a lot of inspiration in this beautiful space. Get a student data file box set up. You can add bright folders to make it look pretty. Here is another example of how creating custom labels can make organizing beautiful. These labels are a work of art! You can make an ordinary bookshelf look clean, organized and pretty when you coordinate colors, are thoughtful of the placement of everything and leave space for your stuff. Another great use for a file box, you can organize your lesson plans by week for the entire school year.
This classroom is full of dollar store organization finds. I especially love the small clear containers on the second shelf. These would be perfect for organizing small bright supplies like tacks, erasers or paperclips.
This is one of my favorite classrooms there is so much inspiration here. I love that this teacher kept with a simple color palette of green, black and white. It makes the room look so put together. I also love the containers on the bookshelf and the storage basket for comfy seating.
Plus, the kids would love these cute caricatures that look like them. Create a turn in bin and a take home mailbox for your students with file boxes and file folders. This keeps the papers contained and organized in one spot.
What to do with all those supplies? If you get the organization for these set up right at the beginning of the year and train the kiddos to put everything in its place, your life will be a little easier. We all love that, right? These teachers have found gorgeous ways to keep all the stuff in its place and looking amazing. These small containers with lids with a colorful label are perfect to keep all the supplies tidy. This mini teacher toolbox with the pretty labels is the perfect place for all of those little things like paperclips, erasers, glue sticks, staples and other miscellaneous supplies.
As a bonus this adorable pineapple has storage too! Later in this post I will show you more ideas and inspiration to create your own teacher toolbox. Here is a great idea to organize those bulletin board borders. You could also use magnetic hooks on a magnetic board to do the trick. If you read my blog, you know that I am big on this one. I just love an organized teacher cart, and I know I am not alone. Another great idea is to designate a drawer for each day, with a few to spare for miscellaneous papers like to copy, to file, to grade and anything else you need to stay on track.
This teacher has one cart for reading and one for math, just wheel it out when the lesson starts and have everything you need at your fingertips.
These next idea is my product. I created these for you to create an environment where your students really feel at home. Take a cue from these teachers and get the wall space ready to go for their amazing work. Bonus, if you make it look as gorgeous as these teachers your students will be motivated to make their work onto your masterpiece wall. This teacher uses matching close pins to hold the paper for a fun touch.
I also love the bright rainbow banner. You could easily re-create this masterpieces bulletin board to display student work. Add a tassel banner for a playful accent. So, part of setting up your room for the year is creating a monthly or weekly and often a more detailed daily calendar so your kids know what to except when in the class. Below are some of my favorites plus, check out the adorable birthday calendar at the end.
To create this calendar, you can customize printables in your classroom theme. Simply find the images that you want and then place numbers over them to create your huge monthly calendar. You could also find pre-made printables on Pinterest or Etsy. If you are a real go getter you can change your theme every quarter if not, then just re-arrange the numbers each month. Here is a simple calendar idea that looks pretty. This teacher coordinates her calendar with the black and white color scheme that she has throughout the classroom.
This is a fun idea to create a birthday calendar. That said, be careful not to make it too distracting. Minimize clutter. Classroom clutter can easily distract students. There scientific studies to support this — something about how multiple stimuli present in your visual field compete with one another for your attention, which limits your neural capacity. Regardless, minimize clutter as much as possible in your room to make your life easier.
Create an effective filing system. Designate where students should turn in work and where they should put materials. A little clutter is okay. The set-up of your classroom is bound to change.
If you are unsure about how to arrange your desks, where to put a certain bulletin board, or how to organize your whiteboard space, pick a way and run with it. I was, and still am, constantly adjusting my classroom set-up to make it more efficient. Redefine the future for students at Teach For America. At Teach For America, we know lasting change can happen: All children will get the excellent education they deserve.
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