Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Epic Effective Classroom Decoration and Design Resources

30+ ideas to improve learning with awesome classroom design

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

A well-designed classroom boosts student learning by as much as 16% (Barrett, Zhang, Davies, & Barrett 2015), but overdecorating is a distraction. Busy teachers can use good classroom decoration and design principles to boost learning. Here’s a quick list of the most valuable classroom decoration and design resources.

Classroom decoration and classroom design tips to improve learning

Classroom Design Resources

Tip: One of the best ways to get ideas is to look at classrooms. Check out the Pinterest boards below or start off with Supply Addicts 80+ Beautiful Classrooms and get excited about what you can do.

Blog Posts

Interviews with Experts

Tools to Help You Design Your Classroom

  • MyKaplan Floor Planner – This free floor planner gives you sample floor plans but lets you work to make your dream classroom work.
  • Gliffy – My room was such an odd shape, that I used gliffy to design the floor plan in my classroom.
  • Classroom Architect – a Free Classroom floor planner. This doesn’t have as many modern elements as MyKaplan, but is simple and requires no login.
  • Learning Space Toolkit by North Carolina State University has a system for needs assessment and space planning.

Websites

Books

Classroom Design Research and White Papers

Take time to read the research on classroom design and outdoor playground spaces.

Build Your Classroom Design PLN

Build your Personal Learning Network (PLN) by adding these experts and resources to your social media accounts.

Classroom Design Communities

  • Classroom Cribs – This cool space focuses on brain-friendly classroom design and runs a challenge at the beginning of each school year.

Classroom Design Hashtags

You may also want to take a look at the Maker education hashtags as this often impacts Classroom Design:  #MakerEd, #MakerSpace.

Classroom Design Pinterest Boards

Tip: Remember that you can always just search for the kind of design you want. But also remember that often people tag things decorations and don’t use the word design. For example, here are some awesome science classroom ideas on Pinterest. I typed in science classroom decorations to get this list.

People Who Tweet About Classroom Design

Videos

How to Make an Ugly Classroom Beautiful

This time lapse video has over 200,000 views for a reason. Awesome. Once again, we see that classroom decoration is an art. The only question I have about this classroom is if it is too noisy, but I love how the teacher uses inexpensive supplies like construction paper to make a huge difference. I also like the share chair at the front. I am also curious how well the paper held up during the year but he did put clear tape over it on the desks.

Classroom Caboodle’s elementary Classroom Layout

Organizing Student Work featuring Ms. Hepburn’s First Grade Classroom

Question:What is missing? Please share in the comments and I’ll check it out and add it to this list. You can leave a comment by clicking here.

The post Epic Effective Classroom Decoration and Design Resources appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

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