In K-12 there is a lot of talk about the instructional environment, how a print rich environment helps students learn, the benefits of anchor charts. Part of this conversation is that students do better when there are supplies freely available, they don't have to beg for materials. Other research focuses on desk and table set up, separate library space, station rotations, groups, etc.
Yet these conversations disappear when we get to higher education. There is little to no talk about how the instructional environment affects college students, or how the issues of forgetting materials, needing materials, feeling comfortable in a space, affects how students learn. IF there are conversations about the environment of a college classroom it generally focuses on technology, how space-age a place looks, all glass and steel. Top of the line computers, projectors, the ability to stream.
College professors rarely have an assigned classroom and many don't figure classroom layout in their lessons. Some college classrooms have broken desks, decades old, totally inappropriate for holding a laptop, notebook, allowing a student to work. Some have longer tables, rolling chairs, better for working space but still often designed in rows. But our instructional space affects how students learn, we should consider it as we design lessons, consider how we teach. If we value students learning to work collaboratively, in pairs or groups, then our classroom set ups should be conducive to that. If we want to decenter ourselfs as "sage on the stage" and not focus on lecture then we should move our classroom furniture to reflect this.
This week I opened my Capstone class with a history of universities, education, as background for our class running as a seminar. I always like to show them the search results for "medieval classroom" as a way to show how a classroom's physical space can influence how a class runs, how students learn, what is valued, what the roles of teacher/professor and student are. In the same way I tell them that "The word university is derived from the Latin universitas magistrorum et scholarium, which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars."
Viewing the people as scholars and not students is not just a perspective shift but requires a shift in pedagogy.
I have always rearranged my college classrooms. I have "borrowed" conference tables and made them predominant in composition classrooms so students have room to work and spread out. I have organized them in seminar squares, facing each other, groups, as a way of reflecting how our class will run, the work we'll do. Even if/when I've been assigned classrooms with desks I've put them into groups, facing each other, a wide open space, conducive to students easily turning and talking and working together.
It makes a difference.
Considering the learning environment does not mean you create a Pinterest Classroom. Those images are about the teacher performing, they're almost never about what is best for the students.
This semester I am in a classroom by myself so I can arrange it how I want and "not piss off others by constantly moving furniture." I have taken full advantage of this opportunity and hope to be able to stay in this classroom. I have put pens, pencils, rulers, looseleaf, colored paper, glue sticks, scissors, markers, Post-Its on shelves in the classroom.
During this first week of class, the first day, students used cardstock and markers to make name plates (and I always make one too) so I can learn their names and they can learn each others. I had students who didn't have masks, forgot their notebook, didn't have a pen, all of which I either handed them or walked over and told them supplies were on the shelves and they went and got and then got to work.
I have a large Post-It pad to make anchor charts I'm putting around the room. I have conference tables and rolling chairs. One of my classes is a horror themed composition, so all the tables do face front for movie watching, but the tables fit two and people work with who they sit with as well as people behind and in front of.
I plan on buying corkboard strips to put up so I can display student work, anchor charts, resources. I made sure that the tables are spaced enough to be accessible. I took my drill in the other day to dismantle a broken desk that was in the back and put it out of the way.
Each semester I spend as much time thinking about what the space will look like, how it will work as I do putting together my content. I really do hope I can stay in this classroom, build on what I have. I know a lot of professors aren't in the same room for all their classes. But they should be. They should be able to make classrooms their own, put up resources, be comfortable, set up their classrooms in a way that fits their teaching style AND in a way that supports their students learning styles. What if in addition to making sure classrooms had working technology we also made sure that they had working desks, comfortable chairs, materials/supplies, things that all contribute to the learning environment? What if "environment" was less about the fancy furniture that matched the new carpet and more about creating an environment that is what is best for the students?
It's impossible to talk about teaching/learning environment without also addressing the health environment. From what I've seen many K-12 and higher education doubled down and have not walked back the plexiglass screwed onto lecterns, the hygiene theatre, and have not made any changes or improvements to air filtration. Everyone has had two years to make big moves and few have. Schools and workplaces are still very much clinging to the decisions made the first few months of the pandemic. There are lots of reasons for this. That doesn't mean that the reasons are good. It does not seem like any of that is going to change any time soon. So many people are in a place of accept where we are, or do something about it.
As someone vaxxed and then boosted I felt comfortable wearing cloth masks the last two years in a county that spent most of that time with an under 5% positivity, and until Omicron, only saw a high og 16% positivity with holiday spikes, kids returning to school. I found that teaching all day the cloth masks were easiest. I don't wear a mask in my office, and that's just the risk math. I have to eat. I have to drink water, try and make up the dehydration I have from teaching and not removing my mask. I upgraded to KN-95s this semester. But I still don't wear one in my office, for the same reasons. I do put one on if a student comes in. I do HATE the moist (and man do I hate THAT word) lower face at the end of the day, or after a three hour seminar, but it's a small price to pay for not killing people or getting them sick. I've told my seminar students that if/when test positivity goes down, we can have a conversation about whether people feel comfrotable being vaxxed/boosted, and spacing out for a mid-seminar snack. 5-8p is a weird time to not eat. I have some students in my 11-1220 class who can ask if they can eat for various issues, and I say yes to that too.
My work has been good about making sure all classrooms have packets of KN-95s, replaced when empty, as well as surgical masks, wipes for desks, sanitizer. About 60% of our students are vaccinated. They all wear masks in class, although how well the masks fit is a spectrum. As it has been for a while it is the combination of mitigation efforts. I still make sure I go to work, home, Guardian visits (although not the last month), weekly grocery shopping. I don't go anywhere else. I share these things with my students so they can make their own decisions, do their own risk math. These things are also part of our teaching/learning environment these days.
With Omicron, a state wide test positivity rate of 33%, a county rate of 25%, and having face to face classes, I prepared for the semester in other ways. After doing some research I spent the money on MERV-13 filters and with the two box fans I already owned I created Corsi-Rosenthal boxes. K-12 teachers started using them out west to keep smoke out of classrooms. There are a lot of different versions. Some just put filters straight on a box fan, some create a triangle of filters on the back of the box fan, the most popular form seems to be what I did, and is shown below, a cardboard bottom, filters on the sides, then a box fan. Some show the box fan on the side, some on top.
The filters are a bit pricey, roughly $60 for a pack of 4 (needed for one unit) but from what I've read are good for 3-6 months, a semester. I used the cardboard from the box the filters came in, and then duct tape to seal it all, put it together.
I also read that one is good, two is better, and if you have two, put them on a diagonal from each other, which I did.
I've always worked hard on my classroom's environment. I think it matters, a lot. I think too especially with the pandemic continuing, trauma being cumulative, everyone being exhausted, anxious, stressed, that it matters even more. If unicorn pens, coloring with markers, a good smelling room, makes the space a little nicer, more comfortable, makes it a little easier, better, for students, than all for the good. It certainly can't hurt, and if nothing else provides a better, more supportive learning environment.
UPDATED
I realized first night of seminar that everyone was looking at me and it influenced the conversation.
So I moved things around to this. The interior square seats 16, my seminar is 12, my Comp classes are 20-25 this semester. It took some fiddling to make sure the outside square tables had enough space for me to walk, look at work, talk to students, but it's working well. I also put up cork strips for student work, and as the semester goes on you can see more anchor charts go up. Students have also asked for things, like a pencil sharpener, so I'm working on that.
The room is still a million degrees, but this set up works well.
No comments:
Post a Comment