Contextual Factors: Description of Classroom

Contextual Factors

Description of Classroom:

            The classroom that I will be teaching in is a small science classroom.  The students sit at small tables, which are pushed together into pairs to create three rows.  Due to space constraints, one of the tables is turned ninety degrees at the left side of the classroom and the two students at that table face into the room.  This creates one row down the center of the room and there is some space around the tables to reach the counter that runs around the room.  Access to the four students that sit in the center of the middle row of tables is a little restricted.  This seating arrangement focuses student attention toward the front of the room during teacher led instruction but allows for easy transition to group work.  For my teaching, this means that I will have to allow for some time and disruption when moving to group work but it should help to minimize some of the issues that I could have with classroom management having the students facing each other if they were sitting in groups of four which would be the only other possible arrangement of the tables due to space constraints.

            In the front of the classroom there is a demonstration bench, white board, and projector screen.  The entry to the room is in the front corner so as you enter the presentation bench is directly in front of you and the student seating is to the left.  The teacher’s desk is in the corner, facing the students, in the other front corner.  Along the side and back walls is a counter top with sinks for doing the laboratory work that occurs in a science class.

            Due to space constraints, there are only two ways for this classroom to be set up.  The tables can be arranged as they are, seating the students in groups of four, or they can be set up in rows across the classroom so that the students sit side by side and face toward the front of the room.  The space is constrained because of the large number of desks required to seat all of the students.  With the additional 100 students that are present now that BMS is a school of choice, class sizes have grown proportionately and have begun to limit the options teachers have in arranging their classroom. 

The current seating arrangement fits my supervising teacher’s style of instruction.  In the short time that I have observed him teaching he has never had the students discuss among themselves any of the topics or ideas that have been presented in class and all of the interaction in the classroom has been between student and teacher. 

The room is also about as welcoming and stimulating as it can be.  There simply is not very much wall space when the windows, whiteboard, and storage cabinets are taken into account.  There are a few posters and items around the room to get students asking questions.  My overall impression is that the room feels pretty neutral to students.  It does not draw them in nor push them away.  It also doesn’t distract them with too much going on but neither is it particularly enriching.

Overall, the impact the room and its arrangement has for my teaching is that I will need to plan in time for change-over to group work.  Also, with the forward direction of the attention created by the seating arrangement, getting student to student response during discussion will be more difficult because none of them are facing each other.  Finally, for lab work, I will have to structure the location of lab materials and how the labs are done to account for the lack of mobility around the room with everyone up and moving.  For example, arranging the materials into stations and then having the students switch on a timer might be a way to manage the movement of students.