Room to Learn: Elementary Classrooms Designed for Interactive Explorations

Environments are a complex interaction of physical elements, including sensory components, design and organization, aesthetics, nurturing attributes, and pedagogical resources. Research shows these elements can work together to improve early learning, self-efficacy and higher-order thinking skills.

Pamela Evanshen, EdD and Janet Faulk, EdD, have developed an environmental rating scale--Assessing the Pillars of the Physical Environment for Academic Learning (APPEAL)--to help educational professionals evaluate and improve the design and use of elementary learning environments.

Transform learning spaces from teacher-centered classrooms where creativity and collaboration are stifled to student-centered, developmentally appropriate learning communities where children thrive.

The APPEAL rating scale is a valid and reliable assessment that quantifies six environmental domains:

• Meaningful Learning: occurs in a healthy, welcoming, and inviting classroom
• Social Learning: encourages positive learning interactions through room arrangement and seating choices
• Purposeful Learning: facilitates discover and active engagement through learning centers and stations, personal spaces for children, and teacher space
• Responsible Learning: encourages children to take ownership of their learning, be accountable for their effort, and work together to accomplish learning goals
• Continuous Learning: showcases children's understandings of core content knowledge
• Inquiry-Based Learning: project-based learning and collaborative problem solving supported by rich resources