• Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Good places to start

Memoirs of a SLACer

sociological views on life and the liberal arts

Feeds:
Posts
Comments
« More on Northwestern’s “adjuncts”
Best Buy stereotypes women »

Considering classrooms

September 24, 2013 by John

There is a classroom near the sociology offices on my campus that I have done my best to avoid over the years. This semester, though, I’m teaching in it again and remembering all of the reasons that I have avoided it. For me, classrooms are something that I only really consider when they cause me problems. In this particular classroom, students sit closely to each other in rows of tables and the room is much deeper than it is wide. The projector screen leaves only about 12 inches of white board visible while blinding me if I am not standing at one of the edges of the room. If I walk between the tables to the back of the room, students facing the front are unable to turn to see and hear me because of how close together they are.

Other than being annoyed by my classroom, my students in this class are not doing particularly well. This classroom was also the site of my problems with first-year students several years ago. In fact, thinking back on my worst classes, each of them was also in a less-than-optimal classroom. Cramped quarters make it easier for students to get distracted but they also make it more difficult for students to form groups and for me to move around the classroom to check in on students doing individual or group tasks. Classrooms arranged in other ways (such as rooms featuring a large number of small tables that students sit around) make it more difficult for all students to be able to see me at the same time and see and hear each other during class discussions. I’m sure that my own mood is also affected by being in a classroom where my mobility is limited or where I am worried that students cannot hear or see me.

In the end, there isn’t much I can do about my classroom this semester, but I hope that those designing classrooms in the future, or remodeling current classrooms, put some serious thought into how they will be used and what sorts of designs are actually conducive to student learning. Just because a classroom can accommodate a widescreen projection screen and large tables doesn’t mean that it should.

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Tumblr
  • More
  • Email
  • Pinterest
  • Reddit

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Posted in Teaching Tricks | Tagged College Classrooms, Memoirs of a SLACer, Student Learning |

  • Pages

    • About
    • Contact
    • Good places to start
  • Previous Posts

    September 2013
    M T W T F S S
     1
    2345678
    9101112131415
    16171819202122
    23242526272829
    30  
    « Aug   Oct »
  • Categories

  • Blogs I Read

    • Conditionally Accepted
    • Crooked Timber
    • Female Science Professor
    • Historiann
    • orgtheory.net
    • scatterplot
    • Small Pond Science
    • Soc'ing Out Loud
    • Sociology in Focus
    • Sociology Source
    • Sociology Toolbox
    • Tenured Radical
    • The Society Pages
    • whatisthewhat
  • Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

  • Meta

    • Register
    • Log in
    • Entries feed
    • Comments feed
    • WordPress.com
  • Site Meter

    Site Meter

Blog at WordPress.com.

WPThemes.


Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Memoirs of a SLACer
    • Join 117 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Memoirs of a SLACer
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Copy shortlink
    • Report this content
    • View post in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
%d bloggers like this: