5 ways flexible learning environments boost student engagement

The days when students filed into a classroom, sat at individual desks, and listened to a teacher lecture from behind a podium are a thing of the past. Today, flexible learning environments and classrooms offer more opportunities for students to practice 21st century skills like critical thinking, collaboration, and teamwork.

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These classrooms also:

• Give students “voice and choice” about where and how they learn best
• Support teachers in changing their pedagogy
• Provide students with more opportunities to communicate and collaborate with peers
• Actively engage students in the creative learning process
• Support deeper connections among teachers and peers.
• Provide greater student autonomy, and particularly when teachers understand the connection between the freedom to move about and the flexible furniture that’s in their classrooms.

Steps to success

Before they start filling their classrooms with flexible furniture, teachers and administrators should gain a solid understanding of how flexible learning environments and classrooms support changes in teaching strategies.