Uncluttered Environment

Overview

Spaces that are structured, organized, and clean provide increased room for collaboration and active learning. Decreasing visual stimuli and disorder also supports learners who have difficulty regulating sensory input and allows all learners to concentrate on classwork.

Use It in the Classroom

Starting at 2:32, watch this high school teacher give a tour of her uncluttered classroom, sharing how the design of her classroom impacts student learning.

By being intentional about the amount of visuals and the classroom instruction they support, teachers can help learners focus on their reading skills to improve their Attention and Sensory Integration. Teachers can also, through small modifications like clustering tables as small group learning centers, restructure their classrooms with ample space to support student engagement and collaboration.

Design It into Your Product

Videos are chosen as examples of strategies in action. These choices are not endorsements of the products or evidence of use of research to develop the feature.

See how Kahoot!, a mobile polling product, has a very simple interface that allows learners to focus on consistent shapes and colors with few distracting visual stimuli.

For developers, an uncluttered classroom can translate to the online learning environment. For student interfaces, the dashboard can have simple and self-explanatory buttons with a clean overall design, helping students with Inhibition & Self-regulation.

View References

Resources

Below are additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.

Examples

10 Calming Strategies

Sensory methods for teachers to help calm students

Examples

20 Things to Know about Learning Spaces

Considerations for what learning spaces should look like

Examples

Creating a Kid-Friendly Space

Six different spaces in an elementary classroom

Examples

FloorPlanner

Free classroom design tool to see how space can be rearranged