Giving Compass' Take:

• Teachers are changing their curriculums after redesigning their classrooms to incorporate more technology and personalized learning for their students. 

• How can re-design be an effective tool for engagement? How can we support the movement towards personalized learning? 

• Re-designing classrooms is one step toward personalized learning. Read more about the benefits of this learning style. 

Ann Marie Lynam has been a teacher in Long Island’s Baldwin Schools for 14 years, but this year she says her teaching has changed drastically.

She supports much more student collaboration and autonomy, and not because of any revolutionary training session she attended but because of a classroom redesign that has fundamentally altered the way she does her job.

That was always the goal. Shari Camhi, Baldwin’s superintendent, invited staff members to apply to redesign their classrooms last year as a strategy for bringing more innovative instruction to the district.

“It is almost impossible to teach traditionally in physical space that is designed around innovation and creativity,” Camhi said.

So far almost two dozen classrooms have new designs, along with common spaces in each of the district’s seven schools. As the district finds available money in its budget, Camhi is funneling it into the project, and 47 additional classrooms should have a new look by the fall.

Wilder, who has been teaching for 21 years, said she feels like a first-year teacher again because of the way her new classroom has made her re-think her lessons. More technology in the classroom — including laptops, Kindles, a touch-screen TV and a smart board — has led to more individualized instruction for students.

Wilder said the new classroom has forced her to relinquish some control. It was a leap, for example, to acknowledge that students can listen to a story while lying down on a couch instead of sitting cross-legged on a rug, dutifully looking at the reader. She said her lessons are different, and that the dedicated theater space has made acting a bigger part of her curriculum.

Read the full article about creative classroom design at The Hechinger Report.