Classroom of the future: next generation of school desks boost math skills
students to take part as opposed to one individual dominating.
Researcher Emma Mercier of the School of Education, said: “Cooperative learning works very well in the new classroom because the pupils interact and learn in a different way. The children really enjoy doing math in this way and are always disappointed when you turn the desks off!
“We can achieve fluency in math through practice, however, boosting a pupil’s ability to find a range of solutions to arithmetic questions is harder to teach. This classroom can help teachers to use collaborative learning to improve their pupils’ flexibility in math.”
The teacher plays a key role in the classroom and can send tasks to different tables to individuals and groups. The teacher can also send one group’s answers on to the next group to work on and add to, or to the board for a class discussion.
A live feed of the desks goes directly to the teacher who can intervene quickly to help an individual while allowing the group work to continue.
Professor Steve Higgins said: “Technology like this has enormous potential for teaching as it can help the teacher to manage and to orchestrate the learning of individuals and groups of learners to ensure they are both challenged and supported so that they can learn effectively.”
Such a classroom may be some way off being a regular feature of schools across the world due to the costs in setting it up, and the level of support needed to make it work, however, in just three years the project team have noted major improvements in the technology, and a reduction in costs.
The researchers also recognize that task management in the class environment is an issue requiring thought and planning, but the overall potential of the new classroom for improved numeracy, learning, and on-going assessment is very good.
The project has worked with twelve different schools in the North East.
SynergyNet is one of eight technology enhanced learning research projects funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council as part of the £12 million Teaching and Learning Research Program into Technology Enhanced Learning.
The project is an inter-disciplinary collaboration at Durham University between the School of Education, the Department of Psychology, and the Department of Computer Science.
— Read more in Emma M. Mercier and Steven E. Higgins, “Collaborative learning with multi-touch technology: Developing adaptive expertise,” Learning and Instruction 25 (June 2013): 13–23 (doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2012.10.004)
