As part of the push towards “21st century learning”, it seems that “open plan classrooms” aka “flexible learning spaces” are becoming more common.
Do you have these sorts of learning spaces at your school? Do you think they are a good thing, providing more options for different types of learning activities, or are the noise levels and distractions hindering learning more than they help it? Do you find that flexible learning space have any impact the way you teach (for better or for worse)?
Interested to hear your thoughts/experiences.
I’m pretty sure that after lots of new schools had built open plan schools, new studies showed that that were actually a bad idea.
I worked in an open plan school for many years, and as a teacher I felt like I had to constantly monitor the noise level of the kids, (little 7 year olds), so as not to disturb the other classes.
I couldn’t do a fun science experiment that encouraged excitement and discussion while the other classes are trying to do other things such as literacy or numeracy.
The poor kids couldn’t express their excitement. And it’s also terrible for children with ASD who can be easily overwhelmed with the noise in a class, let alone 2 or 3 classes.
The NSW DoE has a report on their website that looks into some of the literature surrounding “Innovative Learning Spaces”:
They talk about the importance of having flexibility in the learning space, eg. with movable walls/dividers, and make a distinction between flexible versus open spaces. Further, they do pick up on the point about students such as those with ASD that struggle in noisy environments (as you say, it can be bad enough in a traditional classroom with 30 students, let alone a shared space with 60-120 students).
They also mention how the space should be used to support different types of pedagogical practices. Many of the examples given tend towards groupwork, student-based, nvestigative and project-based learning, with less emphasis on direct instruction. This is interesting, because another article I posted in this group recently talks about proposed changes to teaching degrees, where univertisites are being directed to place a greater focus on explicit teaching and direct instruction in a teacher-directed tightly-controlled classroom.
It’s interesting how the pendulum swings…
