Welcome To Chapman's Redesigned Art Room!

Why is classroom design important?

From the very first Lancasterian school, classroom designs have been based upon the learning outcomes needed for society at the time. For example, the increase of factory jobs in the 19^th century led to schools employing factory model classrooms, where the teacher stood at the front of the classroom and lectured the students seated at individual desks arranged in assembly line fashion. These classrooms emphasized top-down management, separation from the community, centralized planning, and standardization in attempts from produce the most ideal factory workers. 

When redesigning the art room, I reflected on the following two questions:

How can we create classrooms that will reflect the future workforce that our students will be entering?
 

What does a classroom that emphasizes student-driven learning, creative thinking, and collaboration look like?

Meet Chapman Elementary’s redesigned art classroom!

 

  

The Idea Zones

Whether sitting on the a pillow around the floor table, a stool around a collaborative table, or in a rolling chair with a mobile workstation, Chapman’s artmaking furniture is made to move! Chapman students will take ownership over table and seating arrangement as they chose the most appropriate seating options for themselves based upon their preferred learning styles. Students can research, collaborate and create with digital Idea Zones, such as computer workstations, an Ultimaker2 3D printer, a Cricut electronic cutting machine, an XY-Plotter, and a collaborative Idea Zone with a 42” flat screen monitor.

The Hive

 

For artist presentations, thinking routines, group conversations, and technique demonstrations, students will gather in The Hive. Choosing between a seat on a floor cushion, a streamline couch, a wobble chair with a built-in exercise ball, or a counter stool behind an elevated table, students will gather in The Hive throughout each lesson. If my classroom were a tree, The Hive would be the roots from which all ideas grow.

The Progress Wall

The progress wall was a project that was started last year in order to document the learning that takes place throughout projects and provide students with a space to physically see connections between their experiences, learning goals, and current events taking place around the world. Have a connection between my curriculum and a current event or article? Send in an artifact of article clipping so we can add it to the wall!

All that the room needs now is Chapman's 600+ amazing artists!