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[csgirl]

Inspired by the discussion of bad classrooms in another thread, and the fact that I do most of my teaching in a classroom that seems designed to PREVENT good teaching, I decided to start this one, to hear your stories and descriptions of bad classrooms.

My bad classroom: My department holds most of its classes in a group of rooms that were ostensibly "designed for computer courses". Evidently, the people who designed these rooms never imagined that anyone might want to actually present material to students, because all of the classrooms feature fixed desks that face AWAY from the professor!!  I have to teach 3 of my classes this semester in the worst of these rooms.  This room is long and skinny, and packed with tall computer monitors, so that students in the back have no hope of seeing the front of the room. When a course has full enrollment at 25 students, the room is so packed that I cannot fit down any of the aisles. Because the desks face the walls rather than the front, the students have to pull their chairs out into the narrow aisles and balance their notebooks on their laps.  As you might imagine, the temptation to swivel back towards the computer monitor, and play with Facebook, can be overwhelming, especially since I can't really see what the students are doing, and can't fit down the aisles to get closer to them.
I need to teach both with the whiteboard and the screen, so I can project programs that are running on my computer AND also scribble diagrams. But the screen covers most of the board, and is way out in front of it so I  can't just project onto the whiteboard itself because the image doesn't focus there.
And finally, the instructors computer is set up so that I have to sit with my back to the students to use it. If I am just doing Powerpoint, it is OK because I can use a wireless mouse to drive. But I often have to click around a program, or fill steps in so we can look at the process of developing a program. Thus, I end up scrunched down, back to the students, as I try to explain critical steps.

It felt good to vent about my terrible classroom! Does anyone else have a bad classroom to complain about?

[bookishone]

That is a terrible classroom!

I vented about my bad classroom in the "drained after 1.5 hour class" thread. Your story is making me feel a little better about it. I'm off to teach in it momentarily.

[lohai0]

I have an  ~80 seat room for a 30 person math class. It it 6 rows wide and 14 rows deep. The room is so deep that there are big screen TV's halfway back that project the document camera too. The room also gets wider as you go back, so there are more desks behind the TV than in front of it. Even my small class can't fit in front of all of the TV's. Of course, the bad room winner was my colleague who had to teach calculus in a dorm cafeteria last semester. (Why yes, this is our biggest freshman class ever. Why did you ask?)

[ms_turtle]

One of our large auditoriums is in the student fitness center. It takes up part of the first floor and belly of the building. If you happen to have an afternoon class, you are likely to be lecturing with a basketball game above you. A really vigorous game causes the projection equipment to shake.

[coreyb]

I had a 36 student class in a room with 35 chairs (including the one at the computer podium) and room for 34 of them as one student used a wheelchair. But the door was large enough that this didn't violate the fire code.  The sizes of the tables required that students sit on all sides, so at least 10 couldn't face the front of the room.

[chaosbydesign]

One of my undergrad classes started off being held in an L-shaped room in which it was impossible to see the professor from at least half of the room. On top of that, the room had no facilities to hook up computers and use PPT presentations -- it just had one of those old OHPs. The class was moved to a different room pretty quickly. I never could figure out why such a room was designed like that in the first place -- it is entirely useless for anything.

[palla]

I had a classroom that was similar to the one OP described.  The screen for the projector was behind the desks with computers in front of it so you couldn't get to it.  And only about five students could actually see it.  It made for a very interesting semester.

[pathogen]

My classroom is old and too small for my 30 students, and the door has a grate in it that lets in all the hallway noise. Something I wonder about all my classrooms, though- I like to use some projector, mostly board. So why is the drop down screen always in the exact center of the board? It really makes it hard to use both simultaneously.

[summers_off]

The room appeared to be fine at first.  Then one hour into a three hour class, the pep band began to practice next door.  Loud, really, really loud.

[chaosbydesign]

So why is the drop down screen always in the exact center of the board? It really makes it hard to use both simultaneously.

Yes. And the only time it isn't like that, you assume it is and start writing all over the wall behind the screen...

[dochalladay]

One of my classrooms had a steadily leaking ceiling for about three weeks last fall. They finally repaired it, but now one of the banks of lights has been broken for a week. Here's hoping it's fixed today!

[literatur45]

One of the rooms I taught in last semester wasn't as spectacularly awful as some of the previous examples in this thread, but it featured a combination of characteristics that seemed to immediately drain anybody in it of all of their energy:

- it was the only classroom in the remote basement of a building; so remote in fact that many of my more senior colleagues didn't even know there was a classroom in the basement
- one tiny window that looked out onto a cement wall
- very dim lighting
- a loudly rattling and humming air conditioner/heating unit (think airplane noise)

I seriously feel bored and tired just thinking about being in that dimly-lit room with the monotonous humming noises. And it didn't help that this was an afternoon class either.

[jessvo]

This is a very different sort of bad classroom, due to my specific field, but . . .

I used to teach a combination theory/performance class in which I lectured/showed films/led discussions about half the time and had the students engage in movement the rest of the time. I usually teach this in a big smart studio, and the class is capped at 25.

One semester I got stuck in a tiny, windowless back studio that could only be reached by going through another, larger studio. Think racquetball court and you will be just right. There was no smart capability, so I had to use a TV cart for films and do nothing internet-based, and the room was really only big enough for half the students to move in at any given time so we had to do all movement exercises in groups. The class was, of course, still 25. In that room, 10 was a stretch. I think that was one of my worst teaching experiences ever.

I have also had combo theory/performance classes scheduled in rooms with chairs that we always had to move halfway through. But that almost seems par for the course and hardly bothers me.

[fizmath]

My biggest complaint is dealing with small chalkboards.  I've complained and it goes in one ear and out the other.  I am on the verge of buying my own portable one on wheels.  I am just waiting for a good price on a used one.

What ever happened to traditional lecture halls?  Students could quietly slip in the back of the room without opening and closing a noisy door.  They walked around a sound barrier and the doorway was kept open.  Now there is more of an interuption when people walk in.

[helpful]

I had a classroom in a church hall with very little natural light.  The hall was cavernous; the class was only 25 students. It was held over the lunch hour. Needless to say it was difficult to motivate any students.

Another class I had been assigned a classroom that  had exactly 40 desks for 40 students and no room to move (think traditional high school desks in rows). The problem was that this class required a lot of group work! Needless to say it got very warm in that classroom.