Flexible Furniture Fun!
By:  Deborah Williams

Project at a Glance :

This project is for a 4th grade self-contained classroom that is participating in a furniture pilot for West Ottawa Public Schools.  It will be an opportunity for the students to build classroom community and respect for one another as learners as they design the setup and use of classroom furniture and classroom spaces.  Additionally, it will help provide feedback to the district on the pilot project. 
       
Driving Question:

What is the best classroom design for WO classrooms to make them fun, functional, and flexible for the way 3rd-5th graders like to learn?

Standards:

• SEL Competencies: Self Awareness, Self Management, & Social Awareness
• Writing standards - W.4.4 & ​ W.4.7

Team / Culture Building:

• Creative DNA - The class used their creative DNA results to make new teams for this project. We learned we don't have any natural presenters! This became an area of growth to focus on for the whole class.

​Entry Event:

• To kickoff this PBL, our entry event really began on the first day of school with our new pilot furniture! For the first time, I let students choose where they sit each day, rather than assigning seats. For the first 2 weeks of school, they had to "try out" each type of seat, by sitting somewhere new every day.  Additionally, when we officially launched the PBL, I let gave them total control to rearrange the room how they thought would work best. They really did a great job! For example, they moved the mailboxes and drawers with books and supplies in the open space near the door so that they would be less crowded. 

Stakeholders:

• District Administration
• ​Principal
• Teacher
• Students
• Parents

Empathy Building:

• Stakeholder Map
• Empathy Maps - Students used empathy maps to think about different people's perspectives on how classrooms are setup, especially the seating.

Inquiry / Need to Knows:

• Need to Know List - To begin our investigation, we used the Need to Know protocol to list everything we'd need to ask as we planned for the flexible seating setup for West Ottawa classrooms. They thought about number of students in an average class, types of seating that is available, and the needs of the content and curriculum being taught (partner work, group work, etc.).
• Bug List - Students had a LOT to say about what bothers them about how classrooms are usually setup. The biggest trend was that they don't like that their seats, especially if they are really well behaved, they didn't like being stuck next to someone they had to work hard to ignore if behaviors were distracting.
• Field Trip to Steelcase Design Center - The class had to opportunity to go to Steelcase in Grand Rapids and learn from actual design engineers. They toured the facility, tested out all different kinds of furniture and learned about the design process by testing out different paper airplane prototypes.

Incubation:

• 100 Ideas:  When we got back from our trip, we had hundreds of ideas, so we used the Idea Quota to see how many we could write down in 8 minutes!

• Rule of Thirds - A lot of the ideas were ones that seemed obvious, but a few started to breakthrough into new ideas so we were on the right track.  

• Saturate and Group - Students took all of the ideas, from open seating 24/7 to assigned seats changing in the morning and afternoon and grouped them into categories. This helped the class land on a solution, which is HOME BASE seating (and specific storage spaces for our materials). 
• Crazy 8's - Students drew sketches of their top 8 ideas, one per minute with this protocol. They had some really creative ones!
  

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Solution Building:

• Prototyping -Both at Steelcase and back in the classroom, students played around with prototyping. They learned how to do this by trying to make paper airplanes that would fly from the barrier to the table. At school, students moved current furniture into several variations before they decided on the one that they liked best.

Critique and Revision: 

• Fireside Chat - Students gathered around the "fire" to talk about everything they went through in this project. In the end, we learned that flexible seating is wonderful, but it has to come with guidelines and parameters in order to meet everyone's academic and social emotional needs. 

Authentic Audience:

• ​West Ottawa Administrators
• Students

Final Presentation:

• The PITCH! - Unfortunately, before the end of our project we learned that West Ottawa had already picked a different furniture company, but that didn't stop us from presenting our ideas to our principal. In the end, based on their feedback, my classroom is keeping our pilot furniture for next year AND they have designed the space!

Click here for the teacher's full project plan.

Reflection and Feedback:
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     "I love having choice in where we get to sit. I like to sit at the high top tables to do group work, but on the floor when I read." ~  Khloe, Student

     "I like to sit alone sometimes to help me concentrate and the high single desk is great for that!"  ~ Bobby, Student

     "It's been a journey to endeavor into flexible seating, and I've learned that it really empowers my students to be responsible and make good choices on their own, rather than the adults making them for them!" ~ Mrs. Williams
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​Business Partner:

Click here for the teacher's Journey through PBL on Padlet . . .

Meet the Educator:

Debbi Williams teaches 4th grade at Sheldon Woods Elementary, West Ottawa Public Schools.

     "I chose to become involved in PBL when the opportunity was presented to me because I am always looking for ways to engage reluctant learners and overall make learning FUN for my students.  PBL makes the learning experience relevant and engaging for my students and I love to watch their excitement as they explore problems and develop solutions.  It gives them a sense of ownership over their learning, while teaching them real world skills of collaboration and process/revision skills."