Recently Ms. Ippolito’s classroom, H213, received a bit of a makeover, thanks to a a pilot project that includes new furniture, such as chairs on wheels, Bunjo chairs, larger desks, and even standing desks.
“Ms. Ippolito came forward and said she had a thought about redesigning her class and wanting to have different types of work spaces,” said principal Mr. Cohen. The pilot projects aims to show the impact of physical space and furniture has on learning, and the hope is that additional classrooms can receive updates later.
“Part of it could be a comfort factor for students but if we are thinking of this room to be a pilot for other rooms then my focus is on the impact on learning,” said Mr. Cohen “If this type of environment is more conducive to more students having positive learning experiences and greater levels of focus and better ability to stay engaged then it should be something we should considering. We need to collect some data and find out from students how that is working out.”
Ms. Ippolito came up with the idea for the pilot after spending the day in a meeting sitting in an uncomfortable chair.
“I was in a very long all day meeting in an extremely uncomfortable chair and after about an hour I started obsessing about how uncomfortable I was and I had trouble focusing about the task on hand. I started thinking a lot about how our furniture for students is not very comfortable and the fact that if we had more comfortable spaces that they might be able to be more accessible for learning.” said Ms. Ippolito
The results have been overwhelmingly positive, said Ms. Ippolito. “The students have noticed a huge difference and I have gotten almost a perhaps unanimous approval of the new seating.”
“The students say that not only is it more comfortable but they do feel more available for learning because of that increased level of comfort.”
