The wheeled bases of Shortcut Tripod Base Chairs make it possible for students to go from listening to a lecture to working together in an instant. Shortcut 5-Star Chairs are another excellent seating option for flexible classrooms.
The ultimate goal for any teacher is to see their students succeed in the classroom and beyond. As admirable as that goal is, the big challenge lies in the fact that there is no one-size-fits-all approach anyone can take to make that happen. Student success is shaped by many different factors, ranging from socioeconomic backgrounds to individual student motivation, but one factor that shouldn’t be underestimated is the importance of classroom design.
Research from Steelcase has shown that classrooms designed to support active learning have a strongly positive impact on student engagement, motivation, and performance. A growing number of teachers are embracing active learning, but to make the most of all the benefits active learning has to offer, there needs to be a new way of thinking about classroom design.
Active learning invites students to become more directly involved with their education and to be able to do that, modern classrooms need to be flexible. Collaboration is a key component of active learning and while social learning has always been a significant part of the learning process, technology and classroom design hasn’t always made it easy for collaboration to happen. Many of today’s teachers surely remember being students themselves and having to move heavy desks around when they needed to work with a classmate or struggling with limited access to technology. Modern classrooms help make those problems a thing of the past.
Modern classrooms give every student the best seat in the room. Rather than having desks arranged in fixed rows, flexible seating options help make collaboration more natural. Shortcut Tripod Base Chairs, for example, feature a wheeled base and a built-in worksurface, making it easy for students to work by themselves or with a partner.
Technology has completely changed the way educators approach instructing their students, but it hasn’t fully replaced the need for face-to-face social learning. In fact, research has shown that combining technology-driven learning experiences and social learning helps produce better results than either type of learning used on its own. Technology can even make those face-to-face interactions in the classroom richer and more meaningful.
To make the most of this, it’s essential for classrooms to seamlessly integrate with technology. Creating technology-driven learning centers help teachers and students share information and work together with ease. A Bivi Team Table, which can be created with a Bivi Bundle, is a perfect example of how this can be done. This bundle features a media support system for a centrally-located monitor that everyone at the table is able to see clearly.
Pedagogies and technologies change over time, but improving student engagement will always be a top concern for educators. As approaches to education evolve, it’s important that classrooms are able to keep up so that teachers and students alike are able to make the most of the time spent in class. When modern classrooms are able to fully support active learning methods, educators have a powerful way to inspire their students to do their very best.