Classroom Organization II
Training Module
 Read
 Write
 Activity
Classroom Organization II
“Designing your own classroom”
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Introduction
Multigrade teachers should and must reform their classroom in order to
facilitate teaching and learning. Teaching in multigrade setting is much more
complicated and time consuming and thus official classroom formation
guidelines if they exist should not be followed strictly. Moreover, the teacher
should have the chance to reorganise his/her classroom in a way that it
facilitates good time management and permits the operation of multiple
activities by student individuals or groups simultaneously. You have been
already familiarised with the approach of creating an “activity centre” and you
have used it in real teaching conditions. Indeed, the “activity centres”
approach is a very effective method for reforming and managing multigrade
classrooms. This paper will provide guidance1 to teachers that are about to
proceed in such a reorganisation of their classrooms.
Designing your own classroom
Theoretical Background
As it was mentioned in the previous document, the starting point of the
classroom’s reform is the teacher to understand what kind of organisation
reforming needs to do in his classroom in order to have a more effective
classroom setting. We list again the questions that it is believed to help
teachers define their classroom organisation needs:
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What types of activities normally occur in your classroom?
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What types of activities would you like to occur?
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How can you facilitate students’ grouping activities?
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Are there students who tutor?
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Do you meet separately with individual students or small groups?
In addition it is helpful to list again the main types of activities that usually
occur in multigrade classes and which are: Quiet or individual study and
testing, Whole-class teaching, Pair work, Group work, Audiovisual and ICT
work.
If you have answers to the five questions presented above and in addition
define what types of the seven activities do usually occur in your classroom
you can start redesign your classroom. There is no magic recipe to arrange
1
The steps for reforming the multigrade classroom is based on the approach that is
presented in the book: The multigrade classroom: a resource handbook for small, rural
schools, Book 2:Classroom Organisation, Northwest regional Educational Laboratory,
NWREL, (1999)
your classroom but there are some general guidelines that apply to most
multigrade settings that could improve learning conditions a lot. For instance
instead of desks in lines, all facing the chalkboard, as this is the case for the
traditional monograde classroom, in the multigrade school you may have:
Table 1: Characteristics of multigrade classroom formations
• Desks organised into small groupings
• Central space in the room, or perhaps some marked areas around the room where
different learning activities are conducted
• Workstations or learning centres, where individuals and groups may work
separately.
• Resources kept on shelves around the room, in boxes, which are labelled to help
the group identify what they need
• Plenty of examples of individual and group work on displays and boards
The above characteristics are common in many multigrade classrooms and
represent paradigms of good teaching and learning practice. Flexibility is
always an important factor as far as multigrade teaching is concerned and
thus you should adjust the above schemes according to your classroom and
school resources.
Remember: The creation of activity centres might exist in different ways from
classroom to classroom, equipment and furniture and other resources are
different in each school and thus there are no golden rules.
Probably the only golden rule that you might follow is always to have in mind
that the aim is to rearrange the classroom according to the school conditions
and resources in order to achieve the most pedagogically effective setting for
your multigrade classroom. Flexibility is again the golden rule for re arranging
your classroom and creating learning centers in it. You should be guided by
the specific teaching and learning conditions existing in your school as well by
the amount of available resources and students’ age abilities etc.
One other important issue is to design and develop learning centers that could
serve the needs of students with special needs that might be present in your
classes. This is a very important issue that cannot be covered in this sections
and you should take specific pieces of advice from expert educators of this
field that could participate actively in the re organising effort.
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Suggestions for further study
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The Multigrade classroom, A resource for small Rural Schools,
Book 2: Classroom Organization, NWREL
Conant, B. (1997). Room arrangement: The basics.
www.nauticom.net/www/cokids/roomdesign.html
North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, Learning
Centers,
http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/students/earlycld/ea7lk1
9.htm
Hill, L., Managing the Multigrade Classroom, Primary and
Secondary Teacher Education Project, Australian Agency for
International Development (AusAID), (2002)
Birch, I., Lally, M., Multigrade teaching in primary school, Centre
for Research on Rural Education, Unesco Principal Regional
Office for Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok, (1995)
Suggestions for good practice and activities
Reforming the multigrade classroom based on the activity centers approach is
the aim of this module. You have already set up a technology center in your
classroom with the assistance of the students. This time you are going to
make a general reform of the class by creating more than one activity centers
and arrange them in relevance to each other so as to best serve teaching and
learning purposes.

Record the kind and the amount of resources that are available for your
classroom (books, laboratory equipment, desks, chairs, tools, educational
material, technical equipment etc.)

Try to specify any restrictions that might exist in terms of resources or space
problems.

Try to identify what learning centres can be created in your classroom and
how you can reform it better. In this initial reforming approach, try to consider
factors like the ones below.
Setting up activity centers
TIPS on setting up activity centers in your classroom
Clearly define activity centres
It is advisable and quite helpful to clearly define your activity centres. You can use
furniture as well as labels for this purpose. Labelling and defining your activity
centres since the students realize better that they should have a certain type of
behaviour and type of activities in certain centres. In addition it assists you on
monitoring the activities and your students’ behaviour in the class.
Noise level to be kept at minimum
Try to place centres in a way that noise levels are kept at minimum and there is no
disturbance for students working in different areas. For example, activity centre
targeted for group work should be situated away for the individual studying centre.
Students working in a group create a lot of noise and thus should be work away from
those who study individually and silently or those who are taking a test.
Teacher resources
It is good to have a teacher resource centre. This is an area where you can keep
teacher resource documents, books, tests and other supporting material. In addition
it might be the area where you can work individually or meet in private with your
students, parents or other visitor of your class.
Student resources
Resources for students it is advisable to be placed in a separate student resource
centre. Books, dictionaries etc. should be kept there and the centre should be
situated somewhere easily accessible for every student while in parallel noise and
activity is not disturbing for students working in other activity centres.
Traffic patterns
Why not, if it is possible, design traffic patterns aiming at showing pathways that
connect the learning centres. Set out some traffic rules that must be followed by your
students when they would like to move from one area to another, from one activity
centre to another. The goal is to keep the levels of disruption in minimum.
Student belongings
It is advisable, if there is the possibility, students to have an area to keep their
personal belongings. Students in multigrade classes move a lot within their
classroom and need to have a steady reference point as far as their personal
belongings are concerned.
There are some other things that you should always have in mind like:
The activities centres should be well and appropriately
resourced; students must not move from one area of the
classroom to another to take material or furniture or equipment
back to their activity centre.
Important parameter is to take into consideration the age
differences of the students. For example, younger students that
do not read yet might be confused by the labelling of the
centres or the traffic patterns you have. You can use pictures or
other signs to facilitate their needs. Other example is to keep
resources for young students in low shelves of you library at
the student resource centre etc.
Whatever are your choices, you should always be able to explain the rationale
of these choices both to your students and their parents.
You should clearly define the activity centres and indicate rules
of behaving and acting in each of it. The rules are not for
restricting students and governing the class but should support
the purpose of existence of each activity centre.
The overall advice is:
Design a flexible classroom that accommodates you and your students needs.
Design it in a way that noise and disruption is kept in low levels, in way that
facilitate students to work with as much less teacher guidance as possible and
that all classroom resources are utilised and best used.
Three step design
You can follow a simple three step design approach in order to redesign your
classroom having in mind the above presented issues. First of all picture in a
piece of paper your classroom as it is now:
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
Step 1: Design your room as it is now
Designing your own room
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Step 2: Specify what type of activities usually occur in the classroom
Try to specify what kind of activities does normally take place in your
classroom. What kind of activity centres do you need to set up? Based on
specific parameters presented previously, like classroom resources, total area
etc. you can specify what activity centres might exist in the classroom.
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
H.
I.
J.
K.
L.
M.

Designing your own room
Beth Conant (1997)2, a multigrade teacher from Washington, identifies six
basic principles to help guide multigrade teachers in designing their
classrooms for more efficient instruction. There are other approaches as well
but Conant’s principles are an excellent and effective paradigm of multigrade
teacher who tried to be more efficient.
When reforming your classroom, you can follow the same or similar principles
that cover your needs and are applicable under your school conditions.
Conant’s six principles are:
1. The efficient classroom is a centre of learning activities. Furniture and
materials in the classroom should directly support the types of learning that
occur. Use shelving and furniture to define and separate learning areas.
Shelving should be pulled away from and placed at right angles to walls in
order to provide barriers to define space. Children stay focused on activities
better when they are not distracted by other activities visible in the room.
2. The use of subject-area resource centres is an efficient method of
organizing classroom resources. For example, organizing reading materials
into a reading centre makes sense for several reasons:
Pictures of each item or examples of the small items themselves should be
taped to the shelf or container where materials are stored. Pictures provide
visual cues that help children remember where items belong.
Display materials simply with a few items on each shelf. A large number of
materials on a shelf may be distracting to children who are not used to
making choices.
3. Classroom arrangement must be flexible to accommodate new learning
activities. Learning centres can be rearranged or changed entirely to
support the learning activities desired by the teacher. Subject-area centre
materials are often changed to reflect new units of study.
4. Involve the children in decisions about room arrangement. After you
have gotten to know your group and they have become accustomed to you
and the classroom, hold a group meeting to discuss with the children how the
room is working.
5. Place a picture chart of the sequence of daily activities in a prominent
place in the room. The chart helps children to remember what comes next,
providing them with a sense of security and control.
2
Conant, B., Room arrangement: The basics,
6. Quiet and noisy activities need to, (1997)
be in
www.nauticom.net/www/cokids/roomdesign.html
opposing areas of the room. Wet
areas such as the sand and water table and art areas need to be well
separated from dry areas such as books or toys.

Having all this in mind you can proceed to the third step of the design
Step 3: Draw the new plan of your classroom
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Share the plan with your students and initiate a discussion on the classroom
reforming.
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Proceed with you students to the reform.


For each lesson fill in the “lesson plan & evaluation” form that follows.
Try to be clear and give adequate information on the activities.
It is preferable to fill the form electronically using your computer
and send it back to your national training supervisor via e-mail.
Respect the format of it, it will be used for evaluation purposes
Try to share details and present aspects of the lesson that are
related with peer tutoring in your class.
Since the current activity does not refer to the implementation of a specific
lesson plan rather then concerning the reform of the class, fill in only the areas
that are marked with *
PROJECT MUSE
TEACHERS TRAINING LESSON PLAN & EVALUATION
Lessons’ Title:
Grade:
Date:
.
Other grades Present:
Subject:
Teaching Chapters of the Curriculum:
Teaching Targets:
Expected Results:
Required Time and Teaching Time table (for all grades):
(If the class was divided in groups for attending the lesson)
Required Time:
teaching hour/s
A
min
B
min
C
min
D
min
E
min
Time devoted to the grade/group under main consideration
in minutes
Time devoted to other grades/groups present in the
classroom in minutes
Required Educational Material (books, notes, worksheets etc.):
Required Equipment (ICT, lab equipment etc.):
Required Software:
Use of Internet and Links:
Description of the subject to be taught:
Prerequisite knowledge of students:
Implementation Scenario: *
Steps to teaching of the subject:
EVALUATION DATA
(If the class was divided in groups for attending the lesson)
Evaluation of students: (1 to 5)
Group
Pupil
Group
1
Name1
Group
2
Attention
Performance
Cooperation
Group
Performance
Name2
Name3
Name1
Name2
Name3
General Feeling of the class *
Did any specific problems occur during the lesson?
Would you consider it as successful? *
Do you have any definite proposals for the improvement of teaching? *
General/ Other comments? *