How to Manage a Creative Learning Environment?

Do you remember your art classrooms at school? The classrooms I used at high school and sixth form in particular were crammed with inspiration: bits of trees hanging from the ceiling; draped fabrics; skulls or entire skeletons; dried plants; embellished glass gars; ex student's work; pottery and more...

When I moved onto the Foundation in Art and then my degree, the rooms were a lot less inspirational...and bland in places. As a trainee teacher, I hope to be able to ignite the imagination of my learners inside the classroom as well as out on gallery visits etc.

Should we inject a little more excitement into our learning environments for our lifelong learners? If so, how?

Thanks

Hannah

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Permalink Reply by Hannah Garnham on January 16, 2013 at 5:34am

Yes I agree with you that it does relate back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs and taking a more holistic approach to learning. I do try to look back over my own education and within the art learning environments, to learn from those experiences in order to utilise good ideas and improve on situations I remember didn't work for me or the whole group.

Looking over the thread to date, I can see that professionals from different areas of education agree that it is important but there are a variety of barriers in making this work. I hope that together we can be creative and think outside of the box to produce some usable examples for our practice areas. Thank you.

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Permalink Reply by Tracy brookes on January 19, 2013 at 7:22am

Hi Hannah,
Being an holistic therapist myself, I think I tend to teach with a holistic, whole approach in mind anyway, however it is about that balance of individual learning and group work. And yes thinking outside the box definitely is important it also can make the lesson far more interesting and gives the possibility for the learners to learn more!
T x

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Permalink Reply by Samantha Bosi on January 24, 2013 at 2:59pm

Hannah,

I think that it is very important to have some sort of creativity in the classroom. It gives students the "homely" feel and can help spark up ideas. Most people learn in places they are most comfortable in, and let's face it, no one can be comfortable in a room surrounded by white walls. If the class doesn't seem interested in hanging up their own personal work, you could always talk to an elementary school nearby to branch out and get some artwork from students there. I'm sure they would love that!