Mobility & Flexibility
Overview
Creating student-driven, flexible learning spaces involves setting up the classroom to support the desired learning outcomes for each activity. Having the mobility and flexibility to change the arrangement in learning spaces promotes student choice and ownership over their learning.
Example: Use This Strategy in the Classroom
Watch how these high school teachers utilize flexible classrooms to allow for personalization that is tailored to their students' needs. By differentiating seating arrangements for independent learning, collaborative learning and small groups, the teachers create space for students to make choices for the learning situation that suits them the best and for the teacher to offer personalized coaching.
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.
Learn how flexible, mobile furniture, from vendors such as KI Engaged Learning, promotes student engagement. By having a variety of tables, desks, and chairs with elements of mobility, students and teachers can easily reconfigure the learning space to support different types of instruction.
Additional Resources
Additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.
Factors Supported by this Strategy
More Physical Space Strategies
Exposure to natural light is beneficial to the students' health and can increase their alertness and Attention.
Having private or semi-private spaces where students can go to support Self-regulation and individual deliberate practice.
Multiple display spaces promote collaboration by allowing groups to share information easily as they work.
Multiple writing surfaces promote collaboration by allowing groups to share information easily as they work.
Decreasing extra audio input provides a focused learning environment.
Providing texts in braille, large font, and with text-to-speech allows learners with visual needs to access content.
Reading materials of varying complexity and levels are necessary for all students to experience success.
Providing access to a variety of multimodal texts that align with the interests of learners allows them to practice digital, information, and Critical Literacy.
With figurative language and creative sentence structure, poetry supports the development of a deeper understanding of the different ways language makes meaning.
Books on social and emotional learning (SEL) topics, such as developing empathy and productive persistence, help teach these skills.
Providing ways for students to adjust sound level supports individual auditory needs.
Providing ways for students to meet their individual temperature needs supports Attention and Self-regulation.
Spaces that are structured, organized, and clean provide increased room for collaboration and active learning.
