Designing a Classroom
The way a classroom is designed can impact the way students learn (Gray & Feldman, 2004). When designing a classroom, a number of factors are important to consider, such as the diversity of the class; the development of students’ moral, social and cognitive skills; learning theories; and how misbehavior can best be managed. This paper will provide a description of a classroom design that incorporates these factors into the planning and development of the classroom.

One of the challenges of a diverse class of students is that a teacher is likely to have to deal with attempting to close the achievement gap. Schools that are poorly-funded and overcrowded present a major obstacle to closing this gap. However, designing a classroom to address it can help to mitigate the risk of the gap widening. By personalizing learning and allowing students to decorate their own spaces in their classroom, teachers can make the classroom more like an authentic, lived-space environment in which the student takes ownership of his or her space, feels actively engaged with it, and is thus motivated to be more involved in the learning acquisition process. This type of design or personalization of students’ spaces is only possible in a self-contained classroom, however; so if a school has implemented departmentalized classes, students will be moving from room to room, which makes personalization of one’s space impossible. Personalization also facilitates providing educative experiences tailored to individual needs. This means that in a classroom design where personalization is a key attribute, various work stations can be developed and arranged that meet the needs of particular students in a diverse class.

For my classroom, I would ensure that it is situated in a self-contained room, where students have their own designated spaces that they are allowed to personalize and “make their own.” This would give them a sense of ownership of their space and make them feel like they belong while simultaneously giving me an idea of what motivates them and what they are interested in, as the personalization of their space will reflect their attitudes, beliefs and interests. I could observe these and then tie them into teaching instruction by incorporating the backgrounds of the various students into the exercises.

Cognitive, social and moral development is also crucial and a classroom design can take these aspects of learning into consideration in numerous ways. For instance, a classroom can...…furniture to define learning areas, improving accessibility and availability of materials, delineating traffic patterns and improving organization of materials” (p. 10) are all ways for teachers to prevent behavior disruptions in the classroom. Preventing disturbances through design is the best way to handle behavior management in the classroom. Some students may, however, require their own personal learning spaces from time to time—and that is where the personal learning space corner can come into play and be an effective remedy for behavioral issues that need to be managed.

In conclusion, my classroom design would be oriented towards developing children’s cognitive, moral and social skills by having corners of the classroom designed into their own unique microworlds where students can interact with digital media, engage in ZPD, explore and create independently, and interact with the teacher and other students in the Socratic section. The classroom would be designed to address diversity and the closure of the achievement gap through the use of personalization of students’ own spaces, which can help me to bring in students’ backgrounds into lessons and engage them more frequently; and it would be designed to prevent behavioral issues by being properly lighted, ventilated, opened and organized.