+Amy Burvall inspired me to think deeply about the learning environment I create with and for students. There's so much more that I can do.
Creating and maintaining a student-friendly learning environment is a big job for educators as it's a job that requires collecting great furniture, posting wonderful, inspiring signage, and organizing supplies and spaces to promote a student-friendly creative home away from home learning space. I really liked the way Amy focused on the learning/teaching space as a cafe, studio, and stage. I'll keep that in mind as I recreate my school space this year.
Also as Amy spoke, I recognized the need for educators to have support in creating their spaces. For example, should an educator be satisfied with a space that needs repainting and should the educator have to paint the space. Ideally, I'd love to have support for painting my space as it needs a new coat and I'd like that coat to include lots of white-board paint so students can write on the walls (chalk board paint is great too, but I'm allergic to chalk). I'd also like some support for my Maker Space--I'd love to have a really good supply space and I may write a grant to gain support for this in the year ahead. I'll learn more about this at BLC in the days ahead. I'd also like support for furniture too as I have limited dollars for this, but I know how good quality beanbag chairs, tables, and display/production spaces can enrich a learning environment.
In the days ahead, I'll revisit the work I've done to date to create a student-friendly cafe (conversation/share), studio (create/compose/make/build), and stage (present/perform/share) learning space. I'm grateful for Amy's inspiration and I'll seek ways to gain greater support for this dynamic space in the days ahead.
