Years ago, we (our career program) went to a stadium / tiered classroom design. Seemed to give students better sight-lines to the instructor and classroom aids. We now have the directive from a new master (TRADOC) that we should be in “flat” classrooms. Enterprise III or some such nonsense.
Question: Are there any studies related to the seating design for classrooms?
I don’t have any at hand, but yes, tiered seating does put you closer to the action and give you better sight lines. And are typically easier to light. That’s why it’s used in theatres and stadiums. On the other hand, flat buildings are cheaper and safer.
Did your new directive claim some kind of educational advantage? Are they trying to move from direct instruction to some other educational fad? To reduce costs? A ‘reasonable accommodation’ for handicapped people?
It better give major advantages to justify complete rebuilds of the classrooms. I wonder if the TRADOC guy’s friend is a building contractor. I recall in university a huge number of the classrooms were tiered. It gave a much better view.
Of course in a new building, the flat is cheaper - to build, to maintain, to rearrange the furniture, etc. which is probably why newer buildings would skip the tiers. Tiered tended to have seating bolted to the floor like theatre seats. When it’s time for seat repairs, good luck finding exact replacement parts 20 years later.
Some of our high school classrooms had a platform that put the instructor and blackboards a step up from the (flat) floor.
OP again. Seems there were some studies, vague rememberance of Duke, but I don’t have any academic search powers and google is not helping in these manners.
It’s a system wide (US Army) change. It just makes little sense. Luckily I’m retiring. would like to stick a barb in these plans before I go full-time grandpa.
The old Army Corps of Engineers engineering guidlines said “Conference rooms for fewer than 50 students, intended for lectures which stress screen projection A-V, will not need sloped floors or risers for seating.”
Which I would agree with. For small groups like that, tiered seating was only used for things like surgery demonstrations, where before Video Projection, you really wanted to get everyone in as close as possible. With modern video projection, that’s changed so that even groups up to around 999 normally use a Tall Flat Room with a very large screen or screens.
The educational discussion I’ve seen is more about the use of Open Plan or Student Activity classroom, vs education by demonstration. Discussion about theatre design is more about sight lines and cost.
From the Duke University, discussing their newish “Link Teaching and Learning Center” Duke University
and
Duke has an education research program, but I haven’t seen anything there about phyical classroom design. Anyway, that’s not education research: it’s more a concensus statement about education design.
It will be a sad day if TRADOC takes those ideas without a critical appraisal of the differences between outcome-based and liberal-arts education, but I wouldn’t expect it to have much effect on theatre design either way if you are using AV extensively.
I would imagine it would. But what effect would it have on allowing students to interact with each other? for instructors to move around the room and interact with students? for students to take tests without being able to look at each other’s papers?