George Lucas Educational Foundation

Learning Environments

Learning is enhanced by the space where it happens. Discover how to make a difference by optimizing seating arrangements, classroom decor, and even building design.

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  • How to Create a Classroom Culture Wall

    By identifying classroom values and celebrating peers who embody them, students can develop their metacognitive and social skills.
    Marcus Luther
    664
  • The Sensory Room: Helping Students With Autism Focus and Learn

    Imagine a safe space where students with autism can go to calm their bodies and then get back to the business of learning.
    1M
  • The Benefits of Taking Kindergarten Outdoors

    By exploring outside their classroom—and even their schoolyard—two teachers found their students’ learning potential became boundless.
    2.7k
  • A classroom with large rectangular tables and a futon.

    Dos and Don’ts of Classroom Decorations

    What you put on your classroom walls can affect your students’ ability to learn.
    97.6k
  • Teacher and student high-fiving

    8 Proactive Classroom Management Tips

    New teachers—and experienced ones too—can find ideas here on how to stop disruptive behavior before it begins.
    70.1k
  • Strategies for Supporting Students’ Speaking and Listening Skills

    Many students struggle with these skills, which are tied to academic success. Here are a few ways to teach them explicitly.
    1.3k
  • 4 Ways Classroom Design Impacts Executive Functioning

    Effective classroom design can help elementary students develop skills like organization and task initiation.
    9.8k
  • Flexible classroom

    Flexible Classrooms: Research Is Scarce, But Promising

    An ambitious study of 153 classrooms in the United Kingdom provides the best evidence that flexible spaces can boost academic performance.
    48.2k
  • An illustration of a figure examining data

    The 10 Most Significant Education Studies of 2020

    We reviewed hundreds of educational studies in 2020 and then highlighted 10 of the most significant—covering topics from virtual learning to the reading wars and the decline of standardized tests.
    23.7k
  • A colorful classroom with couches, collapsible desks, and scoop chairs

    7 Outstanding K–8 Flexible Classrooms

    K–8 educators from across the country give you a peek at their classrooms—and explain how they managed the transformations.
    48.7k
  • The author's flexible classroom, with many different seating arrangements such as chairs, couches, yoga balls, and stools

    Designing Flexible Seating With Students

    A veteran elementary teacher shares what he’s learned from eight years of building a student-centered environment.
    15.8k
  • A classroom nook with a couch, armchair, and coffee table

    High School Flexible Seating Done Right

    Interested in switching to flexible seating? Get funding ideas, helpful tips, and how-to photos from the pros—your fellow high school teachers.
    19.5k
  • Making the Most of Your Classroom Walls

    Classroom walls don’t have to be Instagram-worthy so long as they display the right information and allow students to shine.
    3.4k
  • The Social and Academic Benefits of Team Sports

    Team sports are about so much more than their physical benefits. This is especially so when group sports activities are incorporated into a young person’s life.
    22.5k
  • Building a 21st-Century Learning Space

    A community raised $6 million to construct an innovative 30,000-square-foot facility complete with makerspaces and learning labs.
    16.1k

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George Lucas Educational Foundation

Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.
Edutopia® and Lucas Education Research™ are trademarks or registered trademarks of the George Lucas Educational Foundation in the U.S. and other countries.