Across the district, teachers are incorporating new technology and innovating their classroom set-up in an attempt to improve students’ learning abilities. At Hopewell Elementary School students have ventured into the world of virtual reality, and a classroom at Riverdale Heights Elementary School has no desks at all. The concept of “standing desks” is also coming into use. All of these methods are being put in place to try to help students better connect to their learning materials and get the most out of their experience in school.
On Jan. 16, 2017, Hopewell fourth graders were able to tour Ellis Island as part of their immigration project with the help of the sixth grade digital leaders and virtual reality glasses. The students put on their glasses and walked through a program that showed them what it was like to enter Ellis Island as an immigrant in the 1900’s. Fourth grade teacher at Hopewell Elementary School, Jamie Bice, enjoyed the opportunity and said, “The students had done research about immigrants going through Ellis Island, but they were excited to be able to see the places they had read about.”
Jenny Umland, a third grade teacher from Riverdale Heights Elementary, has decided to teach in a classroom without a single desk. Umland imagined herself as a student and thought that having to sit in the same chair all day seemed uncomfortable and detrimental to the students’ learning ability, so she made a change. Now the students are able to walk in and find what Umland describes as, “their focus zones.” Once the students have entered the classroom, they are free to move around throughout the day if they feel that they are unable to focus in their location. The students can stand, sit on the ground, or even ask to borrow Umland’s chair. The students are enjoying this freedom. Third grade student Kaylyn Gilmore stated, “You don’t have to stay in one spot all day, that’s why I like it.”
Multiple other classrooms around the district have taken a similar approach and are providing students with the ability to move around, and sit on other forms of seating. Matthew Gauss, a sixth grade teacher at Pleasant View Elementary School, has a couch that he encourages students to sit on. Especially during independent reading, Gauss wants to make sure his students are comfortable and that they don’t have any distractions from their learning.
This revolution doesn’t stop within the Pleasant Valley School District. Bettendorf High School recently purchased three standing desks at the request of english teacher, Connie King. King stated that she got the idea for these new desks from educational experts that she follows on Twitter and from a study done by Texas A&M University. King allows her students to move back and forth between the different types of desks as they please. “I tell them, when you get tired of sitting, use the standing desks, and when you get tired of standing, use the sitting desks.”
Innovation can also be seen in college classes. There are now courses titled “Harry Potter: Literary Tradition and Popular Culture”, “Philosophy and Star Trek”, and “Kanye Versus Everybody: Black Poetry and Poetics from Hughes to Hip-Hop”. The typical set-up of a classroom is changing across the educational spectrum. Only time will tell if these modern methods make a large impact on the next generation of students.
