My 21st Century Classroom

This classroom diagram was made using Microsoft Paint.

Hi! My name is Charity Stoll and this is my ideal 21st Century Classroom. My goal was to make this classroom as engaging as possible for a group of high school chemistry students.

As you have noticed, the classroom is divided into two sections: the actual classroom, where lessons will be taking place, and the lab. It is very important to have the actual lab separate from the classroom for various health reasons.

The color of the classroom will be a light blue color. This is because studies have shown that blue is a relaxing color that the students will feel comfortable around. This will make testing less stressful for them since chemistry is a difficult subject. The lab will be painted a more active color like orange to keep the students alert and more focused on what they are doing.

The actual classroom setup is very simple. The students will be placed in groups of four so that they can work collaboratively on projects and learn together. If a student has a question, he or she can ask their group members first, and then ask the teacher. This will help more timid students who are afraid to ask questions aloud to the class. This will also help students who did not learn English as a first language because they can easily ask the other members of their group for the meaning of different words and phrases. The students will be grouped by interest in the subject and previous science grades. By practicing differentiation among the students, each student group can move at its own pace. The group who is struggling will not hold back the group who is learning the fastest. 

Logger Pro Screen Shot

The lab part of the classroom will be set up with benches for each group of students. The students will work in the same group that they are placed with in the actual classroom. Before working in the lab, the students will create posters about the importance of safety in the lab. These posters will be placed on bulletin boards throughout the lab. When working on lab projects, students will have access to computers to help them document their experiments. These laptops will have programs such as Logger Pro installed on them. Logger Pro is a program that allows the students to collect data and analyze it through the computer. There are various tools that work with Logger Pro, such as thermometers and pH meters.

Students will also have the opportunity to use the laptops outside of the lab. In the classroom, students can use the laptops to create a Google Doc to work on group projects and group lab reports. By using Google Docs, each student can contribute to the project. The students can also read others’ contributions to the project and give feedback directly to the student in class or by using the chat box. This tool promotes classroom collegiality. The laptops can also be used to assess student knowledge by having the students take teacher-generated quizzes online. By using this tool, the teacher will know exactly where each student stands in the classroom and groups can be reassigned if necessary. The laptops can also be used for classroom participation. The teacher can ask the students a question, and the students can reply on Twitter with a specific hashtag for the class. This will give students that are afraid to speak in front of the class a chance to answer the questions. One student will be chosen each day to record the class’ daily activity and homework assignments online using a program like VoiceThread so that absent students will be able to catch up from home on the day that they missed class.

The classroom will also be easily accessible for students with disabilities. Instead of a traditional lab bench where students stand to work, one of the benches in the classroom will be lowered to a height so that students in wheelchairs can work comfortably at it.  Students who did not learn English as a first language will have the opportunity to use iPads with programs such as Rosetta Stone or iTranslate to help them understand English better and look up unfamiliar words that may hinder their progress in the class.

Having technology in the classroom will also help the student build their own Personal Learning Network. I can collaborate with chemistry teachers from other school districts to try to set up a “Chemistry Pen Pal” program. The students in my chemistry class can communicate through an instant messenger program or through Skype with students in a similar chemistry class in a different school district about once a week to talk about what they learned in the past week and ask their pen pal any questions that they might have or tell them interesting facts that they learned. In order for this to work, the other chemistry teachers and I would have to ensure that we were teaching the same topics and labs at the same rate. It can also be arranged that the students in lab groups in my class can do part of a long lab and the students in other districts can do other parts of the lab. Once all of the parts of the lab are completed, the students can open a shared Google Doc and share their lab results and create a collaborative lab report. Towards the end of the semester, a field trip can be arranged to a park near all of the school districts. A Chemistry Olympics can be held that puts the chemistry students into different teams from their school districts. Different “games” can be created to test the students’ knowledge and one of districts will be named Chem Champions. This will also give the students a chance to meet the students from the other districts that they have been collaborating with all year. Besides just talking with other chemistry students in their level, the lower level chemistry students can follow more advanced students in higher level chemistry classes on Twitter and ask them questions if they need help understanding a concept. The students can also follow professional chemists on Twitter.

While the students are building their own Personal Learning Network with students from other districts, I will be building my own Personal Learning Network with chemistry teachers from other districts. I will communicate with them in the same way that my students will be communicating with the students from the other districts. By establishing a line of communication, we can bounce ideas off of each other and determines what works in the classroom and what does not. We can also give advice and critical feedback on different ideas. We can also keep each other updated on advances in the chemistry field and the education field. Through communication, we can establish a collegial relationship. We can also share with each other different chemistry teachers to follow on Twitter and different websites and books that are useful in the classroom.

An essential part of the classroom is to have the parents connected to their children’s learning process. If the parents do not understand why it is important for their children to learn chemistry, then the students are not going to be as interested in the course. In order for the parents to be connected, the parents should have access to what is going on in the class. They can do this by listening to the VoiceThreads that a student creates every day or by looking at the Twitter feed. During the open house session, the parents will be given all of the links to the websites that their child will be using. Since the chemistry class requires working in the lab, the parent must understand the risks of working with chemicals. A safety agreement must be signed by both the parent and the student and the parent must take an active role in emphasizing the importance of using safety equipment in the laboratory. The parents will also be given ways to directly contact me if they have any questions about the course or have concerns about how their student is performing in the class. Parents will have access to an attendance record and their student's grades via an online spreadsheet Google Doc.