Introduction and conclusion - Essay Example

Introduction The challenges that room teachers face are far more complex now than before. Among challenges are the growing number with multicultural diversity, inclusion of learners with disability into the mainstream, and multiplicity of intelligences that characterize present learners. In response to these trends, school classrooms should be equipped with tools and aids that are pivotal in promoting learning across student cultures, levels and abilities. Primarily, the classroom of the future will rely upon technology for offering instruction in the traditional core curriculum.

The school is an important place in the life of every student. It is their second home and significant source of knowledge and venue for mastering skills. In this regard, the environment of the school must encourage students to have the zeal for education so as to raise their academic performance. Secondarily, schools are where students spend most of their time each day. Therefore, the facilities of schools should offer a variety of ways to appeal to the learners and leave among them a good impression.

The classroom is an important environment where students are exposed to aspects of different fields ranging from basic education to professionalism. Recent research has proven the relationship between performance and classroom facilities. Normally, classroom facilities can either engage or deter students from learning, thus affecting student attendance and academic performance. Tailoring classroom facilities to the developmental needs of students can improve the level of student performance in the classroom.

Both the physical and social aspects of classrooms should be considered in order to impact positively on students’ academic performance and social adjustment (Syakima et al., 2011). The basic requirements of a classroom are safety and cleanliness to foster good health and safety. Classrooms should be free from falling objects, well-lighted and well-ventilated. In a report by the U.S. Accounting Office (cited in Schneider, 2002), it was noted that 15,000 schools suffered from poor IAQ, thus affecting health of more than eight million children.

The statistics show that a lot of efforts are yet to be done to ensure the safety of school classrooms. However, ventilation and sanitation are only basic requirements in every classroom. The future classroom should have more than the basics. It should respond to the needs of future students. To do so, schools should carefully determine and respond to the needs of students. Some of these needs may be physical, while others may be social or emotional in nature. At any rate, schools should develop clear guidelines in assessing the needs of students at each start of the school year.

According to Schneider (2002), the amount of natural light in classrooms directly relate to higher performance in math and reading. Classrooms with more daylight appeared to be more ideal. Meanwhile, according to Syakima et al. (2011), educators would do well to understand where classrooms started off in determining what future classrooms should be. A historical look at how classrooms were designed would benefit teachers to see the improvements and to utilize what should be retained. This paper provides a glimpse at past classrooms and the transition starting from the first colonial period up to the contemporary time.

Reflecting on this background, the paper will draw out conclusions on how the classroom of the future would look like and how it would support the requirements of future students. DissectionClassroom of the futureClassrooms throughout historyThere are three main periods from the early days that helped build the education system that we currently have. The first colonial period was between the 1600s and 1700s. The second period was from the American Revolution to the Civil War, which was approximately a 70 year period from 1791-1861 (Anderson et al., 1963). The Information age came next from the mid 1900s to the early 2000s (Tanner & Lackney, 2006).

Colonial period The classrooms were very small and only consisted of a single room building most likely with log walls, a dirt floor and wax windows. For chairs they would split a log in half and attach branches to the bottom. Educational equipment was very scarce and expensive, most of instructional tools were homemade consisting of quill pens and boiled down bark to make ink (Anderson et al., 1963). During the colonial years, many communities did not have school buildings instead individuals would hold classes in their homes until schoolhouses could be built.

Schools began popping up, and the buildings had 5-6 windows to light the building and were often painted red or yellow. A lot of schools had a fireplace or a wood-burning stove at the center (Anderson et al., 1963).Between the American Revolution and the Civil WarThe classroom transformed by adding the latest and most useful technological advances, such as blackboards, slates and maps. The furniture and architecture also improved greatly. The Information Age The American population experienced a period of great transformation.

This transformation included the appearance of brick multi-room school buildings with metal framed glass windows, insulated walls and even air conditioning in some school buildings (Tanner & Lackney, 2006).Contemporary classroomsContemporary classrooms tend to integrate aspects of the physical environment with technology and pedagogy in order to focus on student movement, student communication and teamwork. As a result, classrooms are divided into groups with fewer students taught in smaller classrooms (Earthman, 2002).

This has made the classroom more attractive to learners. The classroom has been designed to enhance creativity, interaction and cooperation. The typical classroom now features ample lighting, temperature control, and telecommunication plugs, which give teachers greater flexibility in terms of style of teaching and room layout when compared to colonial classrooms (Sheerin et al., 2004).In the contemporary classroom:In the contemporary classroom the aim is to deliver information in the best ways and to make information easier for students to understand.

To this end, many classrooms now have projectors, smart boards, iPads and computers. Many scholars believe that books will soon be obsolete in schools, and students will soon be instructed completely through digital media (Ockert, 2014). The early days of students sitting in a clogged classroom are over. The learning technology and evolving pedagogical methods are changing the way the students are taught. They also change the physical environment that students are taught in. Most education theorist and psychologists have begun to offer perspectives from which designers conceptualize the optimal learning environment (Akinsammi, 2011).

Classroom of the futureThe future classroom will transform the physical teaching environment hence advocate an optimal learning situation. In future, the classroom will seek to use an advance Cloud-Based Learning to promote a flexible teaching environment that will accommodate diverse teaching styles and learning spaces that will stimulate interactive learning (Mortensen, 2014; Ockert, 2014). The future classroom will provide Learning spaces that will help students participate in a dialogue, work in groups thus helping them to seek for a collaborative environment that nurtures understanding and learning (The Classroom of the Future n.p). Conversely, the future classroom will promote teaching and learning that encompass action and reflection.

Subsequently, the availability of will transform the future classroom hence endorsing an interactive lecture vibrant in stimulating learning that will integrate action and reflection.According to Sacco (2014), the future classroom will redefine the contemporary student-teacher learning relationship. Learning in future classroom will experience a paradigm shift from a teacher-centered to a student-centered learning. The consolidation of more innovative technology such as Open-Source Learning in education will result in an increase in student activeness hence influencing the role of teacher in the teaching-learning process.

In future classroom, the teachers will become facilitators more than they are now. Due to the accessibility of a convenience online learning the learning process will leave the classroom and enable apprentices to experience it at any time and place (The Classroom of the Future n.p). Subsequently, social platforms keep growing, and this will facilitate the exchange of knowledge and experience among student themselves, hence making learning become more individualistic and facilitating student-centered learning.

For that reason, the future classrooms will strive to make apprentices the subject of their learning hence assisting them to move away from the “banking system” hence influencing teacher philosophy of teaching. Consequently, the future classroom will employ an inventive Open-Source learning that will enhance critical thinking to apprentices. The use of a diverse technology in future classroom will stimulate the self-examination and a tranquil environment that will strive to make apprentices develop critical thinking.

Subsequently, the increase in sophisticated technology in the future will benefit learners as it will help them discover sources of knowledge that might not be available due to geographical barriers (Cody, 2014). Therefore, the future classroom will not be confined to four wall lecture room but it will be a dynamic classroom that will incorporate vivacious information from all over the world. Moreover, in the future classroom technology will no longer set boundaries for a teamwork and community thinking exclusively to the inside of the schoolroom but it will permit the learning activities to occur outside the classroom in the physical world (Limperis, 2011).

Furthermore, the classroom of the future will simplify learning by using technology-enhanced objects to stimulating students’ enthusiasm for learning (The Classroom of the Future n. d.; Kershner, 2015).The future classroom will eliminate the use of paper as laptop, and other educational technology will enable the teacher to give their students exams and handouts online.ConclusionClassroom design and facility are major considerations in every learning process. As history records, the beginnings of education always involved the physical aspects of a learning facility.

As time went by, improvements in classroom facility have become more and more significant as they relate to better student performance. Ventilation, lighting and overall comfort were seen as focal aspects that schools need to look into when designing a learning facility. Notably, the beginnings of technology could be attributed to the consequences of war. Post-war traumas may have effected new considerations for classroom design to make learning more comfortable and interesting. Classroom facilities improved with the presence of technology and soon, it has been a trend to upgrade technological equipment in the classroom.

Such gave way to the use of television, projectors, white boards, and other visual aids. In turn, every change in the classroom also led to different requirements of the learner. As the New Era unfolded, students became more acquainted with information technology, thus this advocated more advancements in the said field. Considering the trend, the classroom of the future will function as a liaison to the growing technology for students. The tech-inspired classroom format will be designed to stimulate students’ cognitive skills and critical thinking abilities.

Future teachers will both engage with and prepare students for emerging technology. Teachers will recognize the way that the techno-mind works and be able to formulate lesson plans that appeal to the tech-minded student. Schools in the future will be exponentially more interesting for learners because the individual educational experience will become more interactive and engaging through the use of technology. More and more technological gadgets will be invented. Following this, Cloud-Based Access will be an option in the classroom and in accessing grades or assignments.

Online learning is expected to gain more attention and so is peer-to-peer online interaction using school forums and online blackboards. Social networking sites will remain to be a way to connect between the teacher and student, among students in one class and students from different schools or countries. Communication will be more accessible and students will be more led to reading, will be graphic-based and less interactive. Following this, interaction will be emphasized in technology-driven facilities, giving way to software applications that promote interaction.

Furthermore, as schools resort to technology and the use of the Internet in teaching students, schools can expect a decline in physical activity of all learners, young and old. In this regard, curriculum designers will be challenged to formulate new ways to incorporate physical activity along with technology, or to design holistic programs to encourage physical activity and social interaction.The new classroom environment will likewise look into nurturing emotional intelligence and social skills, in addition to the attainment of basic literacy and mastery of the core curriculum.

Balancing the curriculum in terms of multiple intelligences will also be a focus, especially in the lower grades. Teachers will continually serve as facilitators because students will be more independent. Evidence of learning will be less based on grades and standardized test scores. Therefore, teachers will rely more on informal assessments that demonstrate students’ ability to create, analyze, synthesize, invent, criticize and design tools they will need in their future profession. ReferencesAkinsammi,. (2011). Education-2025 - The classroom of the future.

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National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities, 1090 Vermont Ave., N.W., Suite 700, Washington, DC 20005-4905. Tel: 888-552-0624; Web site: http://www.edfacilities.org. For full text: http://www.edfacilities.org/pubs.Sheerin, B. & Burke, P. (2004). Best practice in education. Retrieved 6 March 2015, from http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=Sheerin%26+Burke%2C2004Syakima, N., Sapri, M., & Shahril, M. (2014). Measuring performance for classroom facilities.

Singapore: IACSIT Press. pp. 209-13.Tanner, C. K., & Lackney, J. A. (2006). Educational facilities planning: Leadership, architecture, and management. Boston: Pearson/AandB.