Classroom Arrangement Research Articles

Understanding Classroom Acoustic Solutions

This article describes the use of new impulse response measures and observations in existing Florida classrooms to document the classroom infrastructure on speech perception in the rooms. A series of 120 computer model studies in virtual classrooms using state-of-the-art technology are presented that define how specific architectural acoustic variables affect speech perception in classrooms. Recommendations are proposed for schools to meet the new American National Standards Institute (ANSI) 12.60 Standard on Classroom Acoustics based on the measurements and observations in existing classrooms and the computer model studies. Ten practical methods to design schools that can provide the high-quality acoustical environments required in the ANSI standard are summarized in this article. The primary research for these recommendations consisted of recording acoustical measurements of reverberation time and background noise, as well as newer acoustical measurements based on impulse response techniques, in 56 actual classrooms. Observations of classroom situations occurred in a subset of these schools. Computer and physical models of more than 120 classrooms were constructed and tested with varying room finish materials and background noise levels to study the combined effects of these architectural items on speech perception in the model rooms. The primary recommendations concern air conditioning system selection and noise control techniques to minimize interference with listening, interior classroom acoustic design principles for maximizing speech perception, documentation of teaching methods and classroom arrangements that result in improving speech intelligibility, and other factors that affect speech perception that are related to school design and planning.

Correct plan for dyslexia

ideas highlighted in the article by Jennifer Fox (‘The Story of Mary and the Angel’ Five to Eleven, December 2002) to one of my lessons shortly before the Christmas break. The kinaesthetic nature of the model making session afforded the children the opportunity to become involved in something that they really enjoyed. And in keeping with the theme of the rest of the lesson they were given an opportunity to really express their individuality. I used this creative session in the middle of the lesson to break the discussion sessions, as the students do tend to get a little fidgety if they have to sit still for too long. I introduced the story to them at the outset, before sitting with I read with great interest your article on dyslexia (‘After dyslexia assessment’ Five to Eleven, December 2002). Teaching children with dyslexia is often a very challenging aspect of a teachers’ role, especially if that teacher is newly qualified like myself. I felt that the article really communicated the importance of the sensitive approach that needs to be taken when teaching dyslexic students. What I found particularly commendable was the extremely user-friendly format in which the article was written. By breaking down the key areas of concerns – such as classroom arrangements, numeracy and how best to

Interteaching: A strategy for enhancing the user-friendliness of behavioral arrangements in the college classroom

"Interteaching" is an arrangement for college classroom instruction that departs from the standard lecture format and offers an answer to criticisms commonly directed at behavioral teaching techniques. This approach evolved from exploratory use of small-group arrangements and Ferster and Perrott's (1968) "interview technique," leading ultimately to a format that is organized around focused dyadic discussion. Specific suggestions are offered that might enable both seasoned and novice instructors to incorporate this or similar arrangements into their classrooms. This approach retains some key characteristics of Keller's personalized system of instruction and precision teaching, but offers greater flexibility for strategies that are based on behavioral principles.

Emergent Writing: The impact of structured peer interaction

Classroom arrangements to enhance opportunity, resources, modelling, purpose and motivation in the emergent writing of children in their first year of schooling include writing stimulus and resource areas, home bays exemplifying the uses of literacy, an 'author's chair' and displays of written products. These are frequently recommended, but rarely evaluated. This study comprises such an evaluation, and also assesses the additional impact of a form of structured peer interaction (paired writing) between a subset of the emergent writers and older children with writing delay, while controlling for time on task at writing. Pre-post assessment of independent writing products indicated significant improvement for all the emergent writers, but significantly greater gains for those also experiencing the structured peer interaction. Qualitative and observational data supported this finding. These results are discussed in relation to discontinuities in emergent writing experiences between home and school.

Ten Ways to Provide a High-Quality Acoustical Environment in Schools.

The purpose of this article is to describe the use of impulse response measures and observations in Florida classrooms. As a result of measures and observations in "healthy" and poor acoustical environments, 10 practical recommendations are proposed for improving the acoustical environment in schools. The primary research for these recommendations consisted of recording acoustical measurements of reverberation time and background noise, as well as newer acoustical measurements based on impulse response techniques, in 56 actual classrooms. Observations of classroom situations occurred in a subset of these schools. Computer and physical models of eight classrooms were constructed and tested with varying room finish materials and background noise levels to study the comeverberation bined effects of these architectural items on speech perception in the model rooms. The primary recommendations all relate to school design and planning. These include air-conditioning system selection and noise control techniques to minimize interference with listening, interior classroom acoustical design principles for maximizing speech perception, and the documentation of teaching methods and classroom arrangements that result in improving speech intelligibility and other factors affecting speech perception.

Classroom Management Strategies: Are They Setting Events for Coercion?

The purpose of this investigation was to explore the Patterson and Reid (1970) reciprocal/coercive interaction hypothesis as related to the classroom social interactions between teachers and students identified with severe behavior disorders. Additionally, four classroom behavior management strategies are identified as potential setting events for either coercive or positive reciprocal interactions between teachers and students. The literature reviewed indicates that teachers are more likely to attend to student inappropriate behavior (an indicator of coercive interactions) than they are to use positive verbal attention for appropriate behavior (an indicator of positive reciprocal interactions). From this perspective, the authors speculate that the management strategies of posting classroom rules, classroom arrangement, teacher movement in the classroom, and external reinforcement systems (e.g., token economies) may more likely be used as setting events to enhance the effects of teacher coercion rather than potential setting events to enhance positive reciprocal interactions. Recommendations are made for research concerning this hypothesis and for teachers' use of these strategies as setting events for positive reciprocal interactions.

Social-Cognitive Play Behaviors and Playmate Preferences in Same-Age and Mixed-Age Classrooms Over a 6-Month Period

Social and cognitive modes of play were observed in two mixed-age classrooms of 3- and 4-year-olds, two classrooms of 3-year-olds, and two classrooms of 4-year-olds during the fall and again 6 months later in the spring. Observations were conducted during twelve 5-minute sessions at Times 1 and 2. Analysis revealed that there were significant age differences in the play behaviors of children in the same-age but not in the mixed-age classrooms. Three-year-olds in the two sets of classrooms differed on parallel-dramatic, cooperative-dramatic, solitary-manipulative, and cooperative-constructive play; 4-year-olds in the two classroom arrangements differed on solitary-dramatic, cooperative-dramatic, cooperative-constructive, and parallel-manipulative play. Few significant changes were observed in children’s play in either set of classrooms. There was greater gender segregation in same-age classrooms and little age segregation in mixed-age classrooms. The data are discussed with respect to early childhood education practice.

Arranging the Physical Environment of Special Education Classrooms

A review of factors of classroom arrangement that may increase instructional control.

The classroom setting as a source of expectations about teachers and pupils

The major purpose of this research is to examine the impact of classroom spatial arrangement (open versus traditional) and orderliness (messy versus neat) on observers' impressions of teachers and pupils. In experiments 1 and 2, samples of college students were shown color slides of vacant elementary classrooms which varied on these two physical dimensions. Subjects were asked to indicate their impressions of the teacher and the pupils who used each room by completing a set of bipolar adjective scales. Data analysis indicated that teachers in neat classrooms were rated more positively than their counterparts in disorderly classrooms on measures of kindliness, inventiveness, and organization. Pupils associated with neat classrooms were judged to be happier and better behaved. Open classroom teachers received higher ratings than traditional classroom teachers on kindliness and inventiveness. In experiment 3, the same procedure was used to obtain ratings from fifth-grade students. Their judgements of teacher and pupil characteristics were also positively affected by neatness, but classroom arrangement had no impact.

A descriptive study of day care characteristics

The present study describes federally funded day care centers from a large metropolitan area in relation to the arrangement of classroom physical space, child care providers' interactions with children, and the intensity of children's involvement with activities and materials, as well as the structural context. The day care characteristics observed were: (a) well equipped classrooms with a variety of materials; (b) provider involvement in maintenance contexts and brief interactions; (c) providers engaged directly with children most of the time; (d) neutral and management oriented interactions with children; (e) high adult structure but low percentage of structured learning (lesson) time; and (f) relatively low child involvement in activities. The data present a profile of a child-maintenance program, or custodial care.

Technology and Teaming in the Elementary School

A central hypothesis from current organizations theory-that complex technologies generate more complex organizational structures-is tested with longitudinal data on elementary schools. The issue is whether the use of more highly differentiated instructional materials affects the development of more complex collaborative arrangements among teachers. Two sets of longitudinal data from a San Francisco Bay Area study are used: the first is based on reports by principals from a stratified random sample of 83 schools; while the second is based on teachers' reports from 16 of these schools. The hypothesis is confirmed in both sets of data with multivariate analyses that take into account the effects on teacher collaboration of a number of classroom, school, and district characteristics. Beyond instructional differentiation, the only other factor found consistently to affect the level of teacher collaboration is the extent to which a school has open-space classroom arrangements.

Classroom seating arrangements: Instructional communication theory versus student preferences

A study is reported which investigated student preferences for style of classroom arrangement (traditional straightrow, horseshoe, and modular) and seating preferences within each style. Results indicate that arrangement preferences are influenced by both attractiveness of the course involved and student communication apprehension level. It is concluded that manipulation of either type or amount of communication in a classroom may be more difficult than previously believed and that such manipulations have a high probability of engendering negative affect in students which could hinder learning.

Sex and Power of Preschool Teachers and Children's Sex Role Preferences

The relationship between sex and power of preschool teachers and children's sex role preferences was investigated using the It Scale for Children with 19 matched pairs of chil dren in two preschools. Results indicated boys were more masculine in their sex role prefer ences than girls were feminine. While boys tended to increase in their masculinity from 3½ to 4½ years of age, girls' femininity showed no increase. In addition, as predicted by social power theory, boys in the preschool with powerful male teachers were more masculine than boys with powerful female teachers. Power referred to the degree to which teachers con trolled and dispensed resources valued by the children. No significant difference was found between the femininity of girls with powerful male or female teachers. The presence of female aides in the preschool with powerful male teachers may have minimized the effects of the powerful male teachers. These findings suggest that a combination of male and female teachers may be the optimal classroom arrangement for children's learning of sex‐ typed behaviors.

Environmental Numbness in the Classroom

Following research on deleterious effects of surroundings on the behavior of users of other institutions, a naturalistic study of classroom-student interaction was conducted. Instructor-experimenters observed and recorded the behavior of university students in a laboratory which had been slightly altered to maximize difficulty of movement in the room. The amount and frequency of student alteration of the inhospitable furnishings was compared with person-furnishing distances in a non-institutional, personalized setting. The results indicated a strong tendency for students to accept without alteration a rather uncomfortable classroom arrangement. A brief discussion of possible implications for student attitudes toward school follows, one of these being that a specific inhospitality may lead to a diffuse negative feeling and may affect communicative behavior.

A Comparison of Achievement between Students Taught by a Teaching Team and Students Taught in Traditional Classes on a Standardized Examination in United States History

AbstractNumerous claims have been put forth as to the superiority of team teaching ns an instructional arrangement to produce learning. Utile empirical evidence exists, however, to support these assertions. Using 137 eleventh-grade students enrolled In a first semester course in United States History, this study compared on a standardized end-of- course examination the achievement of those taught by a teaching team of three teachers with the achievement of those taught in more traditionally arranged classes.Through analysis of variance, no significant differences were found between the two groups on Questions requiring factual recall or recognition. On questions requiring reflection, however, differences significant at the .01 and .05 level were obtained. It was concluded that teaching teams may Indeed be more effective than conventional classroom arrangements in producing certain types of learning.

Intelligence test performance of Indian children as a function of type of test and age.

The systematic effect of environment on intelligence tesc performance makes it difficult to obtain unbiased estimates of intellectual capacity. Even seemingly universal tasks such as the drawing of a human figure have proven susceptible to cultural bias (Anastasi, 1960a, Chs. 8, 9; 1960b, Ch. 8; Goodenough & Harris, 1950; McCarthy, 1944). In the absence of culture-free tests, accurate estimates of intellectual capacity depend on knowledge of the effects of particular environments. Relatively little adjustment for environment is necessary prior to school age. At later ages performance may vary widely with S's background, particularly on language tests (Anastasi, 1960a, Chs. 6, 8). The present paper reports observations made on a culturally isolated group of Fox Indian children. Measures of intelligence were obtained from school children of different ages using tests which employed language, nonlanguage, and drawing tasks. The performance of Indian groups exceeds rhe general norms on drawing tests (Havighurst & Gunther, 1946), equals the norms on non-language tests, and is below the norm on language tests (Havighursr & Hilkevitch, 1944; Jameison & Sandiford, 1928). Wheeler ( 1942) reported that the intellectual performance of Tennessee mountain children, who show a tesc pattern similar to that of Indians, approaches the national norm with increasing time in school. It was expected that the present study would confirm the past findings and extend them in the following manner. (a) At the earliest school age language performance (as expressed in IQ equivalents) would be below average, and both non-language and drawing IQs would be average or above; (b) the average IQs of all tests would approach the general norms when older groups were measured; and (c) measures of more specific factors of intellect would follow a pattern similar to that for the IQs. PROCEDURE Stlbjects.-Ss were Fox Indian children from the Tama reservation in central Iowa. 36 Ss were randomly selected from the reservation school roster of 86 children. There were 6 boys and 6 girls from each of three age groups which conformed to a 2-yr. classroom arrangement as follows: (a) Group I (Grades 1 and 2) had a mean age of 7 yr., 3 mo. with a range of 6 yr., 5 mo. to 8 yr., 2 mo.; (b) Group I1 (Grades 3 and 4) had a mean age of 9 yr., 6 mo. and a range of 8 yr., 5 mo. to 10 yr., 7 mo.; and (c) Group 111 (Grades 5 and 6) had a mean age of 11 yr., 9 mo. and a range of 10 yr., 9 mo. to 12 yr., 9 mo.