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A community primarily for Australian teachers to discuss the profession. Our community is open to all individuals interested in teaching and learning, focusing on providing support and resources for Australian teachers. We welcome the valuable contributions of pre-service teachers, school support staff communities, aspiring teachers, and anyone interested in the profession.

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Open plan classrooms: helpful or harmful to learning? (theconversation.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

The NSW DoE has a report on their website that looks into some of the literature surrounding "Innovative Learning Spaces":

The Focus on 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...