Acoustic conditions for students’ engagement in active learning classrooms

Abstract

Educators have developed innovative teaching strategies in order to maximize learning outcomes in classrooms. Active learning classrooms are new learning spaces that facilitate the teaching strategies with enhanced students’ engagement and collaborative discussions. Previous studies showed that the design of the space impacts on students’ achievement. However, acoustic requirements of the active learning classrooms have not been investigated yet. This paper presents, thus, the acoustic conditions of the active learning classrooms located in Montreal. The acoustical parameters such as background noise, reverberation time, and speech transmission index in unoccupied conditions and occupied noise levels during learning activities are examined. The results are compared with conventional classrooms. Since active learning classrooms are more prone to acoustic deficiencies, the results of this paper can provide a better understanding of the acoustic design requirements for these spaces.