Many schools across Australia are choosing to stick to a blended learning model across their KLAs, which entails a mixture of at-home, online learning activities, with in-person lessons at school. This shift can pose challenges for teachers due to the large differences between at-school and at-home teaching and learning styles. When analysing the effective arrangements for quality education furniture Australia based schools have implemented, we have found these to be the considerations that best set up a classroom for success in blended education.
Teachers should try to consider their classroom instruction time as a limited resource in the blended education model, rather than as a given. Since there is the expectation of reduced face-to-face time, activities and furniture should ideally make the most of the opportunities students receive when having a teacher or mentor in the room. It is good to make the classroom communicate an open space for discourse, rather than using more traditional room arrangements which are best suited to lecture-style lessons. Instead, walkways and spaces between table groupings should allow the teacher to interact with all students easily on a personal basis.
Lastly, effective classroom arrangements enable teachers to maintain continuity with students despite the transitions between online and in-person learning. Through the use of group work and project-based learning activities, teachers can connect the learning students have done online with formative assessment tasks to monitor progress. This requires a classroom designed around small collaborative groups, rather than formal rows. Furthermore, continuity can be enforced through small, subtle details, such as whiteboards or posters around the room which help students keep track of upcoming assessments or due dates. Through these changes, a classroom can communicate to students that they are welcome and that their learning is sequenced.
When considering the best choices for education furniture Australia based schools have made in recent months, the priorities of teacher-student interaction, technology access and collaboration become very apparent. The effective arrangement of the classroom to better cater for these new styles of learning can help make the transition to blended education a smoother and more productive one.
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