What are your favorite classrooms? Which rooms make you look forward to teaching? What do those rooms all have in common? Almost a year ago, Jeff wrote an interesting post about redesigning the classroom to include a “large, pressure-sensitive multi-touch wall” of the kind we’re now used to seeing on television news programs. And last September, I described my ideal classroom, in terms of information technology. However, most of the classrooms that have been my favorites have been so for reasons that have nothing to do with technology. Instead, I’ve most appreciated those rooms with
- Enough room so that student desks aren’t jammed together, “bumper-to-bumper” style, leaving no room for rearranging them when necessary for small group work or discussions;
- Windows that allow natural light to mitigate, somewhat, the sterile quality of what are usually overhead flourescents;
- Carpet on the floor, rather than bare tile, so that the room doesn’t feel like a hospital;
- A clear and uncluttered space at the front, so I don’t have to step over electrical cords or step around chairs or tables… and so that students can come to the front of the room in small groups to use the white board at times.
How about you? What non-technology qualities define your favorite classrooms? Let’s hear from you in the comments!
[Creative Commons-licensed flickr photo by black vanilla.]
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39 Responses to What Are Your Favorite Classrooms?
lcevering - January 28, 2011 at 12:10 pm
While I agree with all of the aesthetic properties you mentioned, my favorite classroom is the one closest to my office! :-) For the first time, I am able to teach all of my classes on the same floor, just down the hall from my office. It has really made a difference in the things I can (and will) bring to class for demonstration, student use vs. hauling them across campus to another building or several floors up. I wish administrators paid more attention to proximity when scheduling courses. Sigh….
sherbygirl - January 28, 2011 at 1:03 pm
Windows are key, but I have come to hate carpet in classrooms, as it just ends up getting wet and dingy by the end of the winter semester, and that grime never seems to come out. To me, industrial carpet is way more depressing than tile.
I like having the same classroom for all my classes if possible; I get to know the layout, how the “flow” works and doesn’t work, and I find it just helps with the rhythm of my teaching (ugh, how vague and unscientific was that?).
leingang - January 28, 2011 at 2:10 pm
In math we use the board a lot, so that’s an important feature of the classroom. There’s a room on our campus with a very bad chalkboard paint job; for some reason, it’s hard to get a good chalk mark on it. There are also musical staves painted across 1/3 of the board, rendering it unusable. I cannot find anyone on campus who is responsible for the decision to keep or remove those staves.
Not only that, there are two large poles in the center of the room which block out another portion of the board from student view. The rows of seats are built on risers while the aisles are level, meaning students have to climb stairs to get to their seats and sit high above me. Finally, on a personal note, there is a projector stand mounted on of the poles that I cut my head on while giving a midterm. It is the most worstest classroom in the world.
rmclaycomb - January 28, 2011 at 2:40 pm
A few additions to your ideal classroom. I prefer blackboards to white boards, ideally on at least two sides of the room; I want the chairs/desks to move freely (which also means I want a flat floor, not tiered). I also want the room to be shaped more like a square than an oblong rectangle, which facilitates discussion circles, but also better sightlines for everyone for the entire boards space.
Also, color is important. We have a building that was refloored and repainted, and went from dark green floors and mint green walls (everyone looked seasick) to cream/custard tones on both. With navy seats and blackboards, the room now has a more varied visual scape, and a generally warmer one. The general attitude of the room has improved dramatically.
mmccllln - January 28, 2011 at 3:43 pm
Although next to impossible to find, I strongly prefer a room with lighting other than stark fluorescent. I also like one where the desks can be arranged in a circular fashion rather than the traditional rows.
kevingannon - January 28, 2011 at 3:55 pm
Last semester, I taught in a room in our science building, which looks like a 1950s East German elementary school, with all the charm and ambiance that implies.
I could move the desks, but they were the old chair-and-arm-desk-attached kind/ The cinder block walls were off-white, the linoleum tiles were institutional green, the lighting starkly florescent, and all in all a miserable place to teach. It sounds crazy, but it really affected both me and my students. I received a lot of comments about the room itself on the course evals.–which has never happened before. Environment matters!
22019391 - January 28, 2011 at 4:26 pm
My favorite classroom has comfortable chairs for the students. They can concentrate on the class, rather than how uncomfortable they are.
gregg_sanders - January 28, 2011 at 4:27 pm
I recently completed a study observing 10 classrooms on 5 Oregon campuses to determine what features make a good classroom. After observing student and instructor use of classroom features including technology, my conclusions were very similar to the author’s. I found that while powerpoint and a screen projector are critical elements, many other more enhanced features were rarely if ever used by students or instructors. Furthermore, classroom size, configuration, proportion, access to light, finishes and color seemed to have direct impact on student-instructor engagement.
11196496 - January 28, 2011 at 4:53 pm
My favorite classroom when I taught at the University of Dayton was in the basement of the library. It was called the Studio in the Learning Teaching Center. It was designed to encourage profs to rethink their teaching methods, and so those who taught there were reqired to meet with other instructors using the space and were exempt from the University’s standard end-of-the-term students survey.
Even though it had no windows, it was a great space. It was set up for twenty four students. It was carpeted and had easily moveable tables and upholstered chairs instead of desks. Students could easily consult a variety of books and electronic media without everything sliding off a slanted surface and onto the floor. It was more like a large conference room in a business setting that an ordinary classroom. This different set-up immediately impacted student behavior.
Small moveable whiteboards encouraged group work and each group teaching the whole class. A/V equipment was part of the set up too with appropriate controls for lighting levels and illuminating specific spaces. There were lots of electrical outlets for students’s computers. The student-run coffee bar just outside the classroom helped with early morning classes.
One result of the first years’use of this space was a hard look at and reconfiguration of other instructional spaces on campus. It seet the standard for new buildings on campus.
For more detaisl see http://community.udayton.edu/provost/aali/ltc/development/studio.php
geneseo - January 31, 2011 at 6:19 am
I would like projection screens to not come down over the blackboard. I like to use both and it is very difficult to do when one obstructs the other.
I prefer a chalkboard to a whiteboard because those markers for the whiteboards make me sick.
I prefer daylight. We just had a blackout on campus and the only classes I could teach were the ones in the classroom with windows and chalkboards. So much for dependence on technology, eh?
I like chairs that can be moved and wish that there were options other than those chairs-with-desks-attached.
lizgibbons - January 31, 2011 at 7:09 am
One of the first things I did when I arrived at my present post (where, fortunately, I am more or less in charge of the dance studio) was to put up hanging plants along the periphery. All grown from cuttings of plants I already owned, we now have 2 dozen which return 10 gallons of water a week to the otherwise very dry air (takes my work-study 15 min. 3x a week), reduces static and thus dust in the electronics and makes the room a much healthier place.
dld18 - January 31, 2011 at 9:21 am
Many of these comments echo my preference: movable seating, carpet, windows, computer access/projector, screen that doesn’t block the chalkboard. I also prefer a room with a clock, so I don’t have to keep checking my own timepiece, and a room with appropriate temperature. Since I teach 3 hour classes, I also prefer a classroom where the sounds of students leaving/entering other classrooms doesn’t leak into the room we are using.
alabaster - January 31, 2011 at 9:55 am
Bring back chalkboards, across the board. I too, don’t like white boards or the (sometimes stinky) dri-erase markers. Often, there aren’t any markers in the classroom, or someone has used a permanent marker on the whiteboard & left it up to us to scrub. (Students have been a great help with this, but it uses up class time, even if we start before class.) The dri-erase erasers are sometimes so loaded with ink that they leave dark marks on the whiteboard instead of cleaning it. Chalkboard technology is far easier to use & more environmentally friendly (where do all those old plastic markers go?). I agree about having windows, a clock in the classroom, & being able to control the temperature. Moveable chairs and at least one small moveable table are key features for my Arabic classes.
t_rey - January 31, 2011 at 11:07 am
It’s good to know I’m not alone in a preference for chalkboards. They are clearer, more reliable, and I think better facilitate teaching than a dry erase or wipe board (why are there 5 markers, 1 that is permanent and only 1 that works?). I also prefer classrooms above the ground floor so that while natural light can come inside, the goings-on of a busy campus aren’t too distracting.
missoularedhead - January 31, 2011 at 11:11 am
I’m absolutely fine with whiteboards, and get creative with color. But if there’s one thing that makes me crazy, it’s the screen covering the whiteboard/blackboard. I have had to bring a rolling whiteboard into a (very) small room. I also like space to walk around, and tables/desks that move. I do have to say that I have one of those readers (have no idea what it’s called) that projects an image from printed material onto the screen, and I like that…except the carpet means every time I touch something metal, I get shocked.
csgirl - January 31, 2011 at 8:57 pm
Chalkboards or whiteboards – both are fine. What makes me crazy is that in our classrooms, the screen for the projector is mounted 3 feet in front of the whiteboard, smack in the center, so there isn’t enough room on either side of the screen to write on the whiteboard. If I want to write some quick notes to amplify something on the screen, or to diagram something, I have to raise the screen and turn off the projector. It takes all the spontaneity out of the lecture.
lyndahar - February 1, 2011 at 7:02 pm
When projectors go into a room, chalkboards go out — less dust to clog the filters. I find it safer to carry my own whiteboard markers than to rely on whatever might be in the room.
Document cameras (probably what missoularedhead is talking about) were a big hit with our faculty. If you have a good control system that allows easy switching among inputs, you can hop to the document camera to display quick notes or diagrams, then return to the projector.
nsteiger - February 5, 2011 at 5:11 pm
My top priority: comfortable, movable seats and desks. I prefer whiteboards (the markers we use work fine, tho’ red and black seem to make the best impressions) and of course, put the projection screen in the corner so it doesn’t block the boards. Technologies: DVD player, online computer, doc cam, with an easily accessible USB port for flash drive (one that doesn’t require bending over).
Daylight is definitely a plus. And, oh yes, I really appreciate when the department can schedule all my classes in the same room so I don’t have to lug materials to and from the office.
I also had the same experience with carpeting as sherbygirl.
friendlyfire - February 10, 2011 at 9:34 pm
@alabaster – for permanent marker ink on a whiteboard, simply color over it with a dry-erase marker and wipe off (towel or dry eraser).