Learning Spaces – 2

One of the first questions that gets asked about the design on a physical learning space is what colours the walls and ceiling should be painted.  Matte (not glossy) surfaces are generally the best finishes to use except at high touch points such as mouldings around doors where easy cleaning is crucial.  Shades that are, on the continuum from less saturated to more saturated somewhere near the middle towards the less saturated end of the spectrum are best.

Lighter shades (ones that seem to have lots of white paint mixed into them) will boost mood as well as make the instructional area seem slightly larger, which is a good thing in most classrooms.  Seeing all sorts of greens has been linked to enhanced creative performance so they are good options for classrooms.  Blues are associated with rest and sleep, so they are less desirable on classroom walls, at least unless the teacher is an entertainer as well as an educator.  All reds, even in tiny amounts, should be eliminated from learning spaces.  Seeing them degrades analytical performance, which is almost always important during the learning process.  Ceilings should be some shade of white or very very light blue so that they seem to be at an appropriate distance from the floor.

Floors themselves should be the darkest colour in the room, so people feel comfortable there.  When carpets are used, and they like other soft surfaces can be very important in classrooms to cut noise and echoing, patterns that are more paisley than geometric are best;  there should be more curving lines in whatever is selected than straight ones.

Having about half of the surfaces in a classroom covered with wood, with visible grain, is a good choice.  Seeing wood grain has been tied to a boost in learning outcomes.

Visual clutter is particularly problematic in classroom type spaces.  Remember when your first grade teacher posted students’ academic and art work on the walls along with seasonal decorative cutouts like snowflakes during winter and highlights from science lessons, all capped off with a frieze across the front of the classroom that featured the letters of the alphabet in upper and lower case?  Well, it turns out that teacher wasn’t on target design-wise.  Posting a carefully curated set of materials on walls, say five or six poster size images in a classroom, as shown in this image below, is best.  Much more, coupled with the effort of learning, makes us feel tense and that makes it difficult for us to learn anything. Storage bins, closets, cabinets and other places to stash stuff that people can’t see into help keep visual clutter low.

Green leafy plants in classrooms, even ones that students can only see as they enter the room and not after classes begin is a very, very good idea.  If students can see the plants during lessons, one or two, tall enough so that they’re visible from the furthest seats, are best,  More is a jungle, at least in our minds, and being in a jungle, like being in a place with visual clutter makes us tense, and stress degrades educational performance.  Green walls can also work well, as long as they’re about the same size as a residential window, 2 meters by 1 meter.  Wall size, for example, green walls stress us and that’s not good for learning.  Photographs of nature scenes are also education elixirs.  All of this nature directly supports learning in research studies; it also encourages mental refreshment after students have been cognitively exhausted doing knowledge work.  Seeing green spaces and gently moving water outside is also a plus for learning, if you can swing it.

Lighting classrooms is pretty straightforward.  Getting as much natural light into the area, without glare, as possible is important.  Research consistently shows that daylight makes all of our brains work better and in particular helps us learn new material.  When artificial light is needed, cooler shades of light, that are relatively bright (roughly up to 1000 lux) are best.  At night in your home classroom turning on all the overhead, standing, and table top lamps in the space is a good idea, and there should be at least one of each present.