Marco James' Blogger: Epic Effective Classroom Decoration and Design Resources

30+ ideas to improve learning with awesome classroom design

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

A well-designed classroom boosts student learning by as much as 16% (Barrett, Zhang, Davies, & Barrett 2015), but overdecorating is a distraction. Busy teachers can use good classroom decoration and design principles to boost learning. Here’s a quick list of the most valuable classroom decoration and design resources.

Classroom Design Resources

Tip: One of the best ways to get ideas is to look at classrooms. Check out the Pinterest boards below or start off with Supply Addicts 80+ Beautiful Classrooms and get excited about what you can do.

Blog Posts

Tips for Creating Wow-Worthy Learning Spaces by Todd Finley [Edutopia]
Using Bulletin Boards to Differentiate the Classroom Environment by Jessica Mazone [Gifted Education Communicator]
When Students Design Their Own Schools by Erin Klein

Interviews with Experts

Erin Klein on Classroom Design [Every Classroom Matters episode]
3 Learning Experiences You Should Give to Every Student [Every Classroom Matters episode]

Tools to Help You Design Your Classroom

MyKaplan Floor Planner – This free floor planner gives you sample floor plans but lets you work to make your dream classroom work.
Gliffy – My room was such an odd shape, that I used gliffy to design the floor plan in my classroom.
Classroom Architect – a Free Classroom floor planner. This doesn’t have as many modern elements as MyKaplan, but is simple and requires no login.
Learning Space Toolkit by North Carolina State University has a system for needs assessment and space planning.

Websites

Architect’s RosanBosch’s Portfolio of Teaching & Institution Designs
Terry Heick’s Learnist Board with 50 Bulletin Board Ideas
24 Places to Find Bulletin Board Displays by Julie Greller
School Girl Style’s Classroom Ideas

Books

Make Space: How to Set the Stage for Creative Collaboration by Scott Doorley and Scott Witthoft
The Third Teacher by O’Donnel, Wicklund, Pigozze and Peterson

Classroom Design Research and White Papers

Take time to read the research on classroom design and outdoor playground spaces.

Barrett, P. S., Zhang, Y., Davies, F., & Barrett, L. C. (2015). Clever Classrooms: Summary report of the HEAD project. University of Salford, Manchester.
http://wallenberg.stanford.edu/research/findings/HPLS/HPLS_Final_Report.pdf [PDF] High Performance Learning Spaces – a paper shared by Stanford University in 2004 about their research into creating spaces where high performance learning happens.
An Informational Guide to Young Children’s Outdoor Play Spaces [PDF] by the Consortium for Health, Intervention, Learning and Development (CHILD) – This guide is based on the 7 C’s identified by a five-year study of outdoor play spaces at child care centers in Vancouver. The 7 C’s include: character, context, connectivity, change, chance, clarity, and challenge. This paper gives lots of examples and ideas for what makes an excellent, nurturing outdoor play space.
Really Good Bulletin Boards [PDF] by Brandi Jordan has fantastic month by month ideas and bulletin board concepts for teachers. This is an excellent PDF to share with your staff.
Folkins, J. W., Friberg, J. C., & Cesarini, P. A. (2015). University Classroom Design Principles to Facilitate Learning: The Instructor as Advocate. Planning for Higher Education, 43(2), 45.
Simmons, K., Carpenter, L., Crenshaw, S., & Hinton, V. M. (2015). Exploration of Classroom Seating Arrangement and Student Behavior in a Second Grade Classroom. Georgia Educational Researcher, 12(1), 51.

Build Your Classroom Design PLN

Build your Personal Learning Network (PLN) by adding these experts and resources to your social media accounts.

Classroom Design Communities

Classroom Cribs – This cool space focuses on brain-friendly classroom design and runs a challenge at the beginning of each school year.

Classroom Design Hashtags

#designthinking
#ntchat – the new teacher chat sometimes has classroom design ideas

You may also want to take a look at the Maker education hashtags as this often impacts Classroom Design: #MakerEd, #MakerSpace.

Classroom Design Pinterest Boards

Tip: Remember that you can always just search for the kind of design you want. But also remember that often people tag things decorations and don’t use the word design. For example, here are some awesome science classroom ideas on Pinterest. I typed in science classroom decorations to get this list.

Classroom Environment Board by What Have I Learned
Classroom Design Board by Erin Klein (she’s one of my favorites)
Classroom Management Board curated by 81 Teachers on Pinterest has lots of ideas.

People Who Tweet About Classroom Design

Erin Klein @kleinerin
David Jakes @djakes
Ewan McIntosh @ewanmcintosh

Videos

“Setting Up a Brain Friendly, Beautiful Classroom” Erin Klein did a webinar on setting up a Brainfriendly classroom that I recommend watching.

How to Make an Ugly Classroom Beautiful

This time lapse video has over 200,000 views for a reason. Awesome. Once again, we see that classroom decoration is an art. The only question I have about this classroom is if it is too noisy, but I love how the teacher uses inexpensive supplies like construction paper to make a huge difference. I also like the share chair at the front. I am also curious how well the paper held up during the year but he did put clear tape over it on the desks.