Browsing by Subject "istumajärjestys"

The purpose of this study was to determine primary school's classrooms as physical spaces, and how and by whom the seating arrangements have evolved. Another aim was to find out if teachers thought that it's possible to transmit their own conceptions of learning and values via class seating arrangements. I will try to explain does the classrooms' physical learning environment relate to the current conception of learning. Physical learning environment of classrooms has not been studied in Finland from the aspect of interaction. Prior studies about the physical learning environment in schools have focused on the school yard and other common spaces. I gathered my data by photographing classrooms in six different schools in the inner city of Joensuu during the spring of 2013. My data consists of 50 classrooms varying from 1st to 6th grade classes. In addition to the photos I did focused interviews with four teachers from two different schools in Joensuu during the autumn of 2014. The cores of the interviews were formed on the basis of image analysis of the photographs taken. The interviews were analyzed using content analysis methods. My research shows that classes differ as physical spaces between different schools as well as within the same school. Based on the class photographs, the size of the classroom does not have a great impact in the shaping of the seating arrangements, but some teachers do find the lack of space a great challenge. The aim was to examine different kinds of ways to organize classrooms to support learning and to learn teachers' experiences and conceptions of a functional classroom. A common objective behind the seating arrangements seemed to be to strive for teamwork. In spite of this, it was usually the teacher who made the seating arrangement. Based on the analysis of my data, it appears that the effects and opportunities of the classrooms as physical learning environments have not been full recognized yet.