TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) - Amber Wilson Millhouse called her second-grade class at Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary the way she had for two years: with the ringing of a bell.
After the students began to sit in their seats, Millhouse put the bell down and picked up a wire with a microphone hanging from her shirt. As she spoke into it, six speakers around the room amplified her voice.
“Make sure you are cleaning up your area and not talking,” Millhouse said.
The speakers serve a dual purpose in the classroom, which is part of a prototype classroom project Tuscaloosa City Schools is conducting to see how a different learning environment affect student achievement and teacher instruction. In addition to instruction, Millhouse also uses the speakers to listen in to different groups that are talking or are not following directions. During a visit on Friday, Millhouse used the headphones attached to her microphone to listen to a student from across the room who was not following instructions.
“I better not hear you over there saying anything,” she said to the girl. “Remember, I have my headphones and I can hear everything, so make sure you aren’t saying anything you shouldn’t be saying.”
Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary is one of four city schools that have such a classroom. Central High School, Eastwood Middle and Woodland Forrest Elementary are also trying out these classrooms, which use moveable furniture, enlarged whiteboard space, better lighting and touchscreen boards to improve the classroom experience for students.
“There is both excitement about these classrooms and there is also anxiety, but the point is we are kicking the tires,” Superintendent Mike Daria said during a school board retreat Sept. 30.
Christi Butler, MLK Elementary’s principal, said the classroom has done a lot for students and teachers alike.
“It’s basically revolutionized the way they are learning,” Butler said. “They are excited to learn, there are a lot of fun things they can try and the teachers are able to do more than they were in the past.”
In past years, researchers have studied the correlation between the classroom setting and student achievement. According to a 2013 study published by the University of Salford in Manchester, an examination of more than 750 students in seven primary schools in Blackpool, England, concluded that a classroom’s environment can affect a student’s academic performance during a year by as much as 25 percent, for good or bad.
“Current findings suggest that placing an average pupil in the least effective, rather than the most effective classroom environment could affect their learning progress by as much as the average improvement across one year,” the university stated in a release on the study.
In Millhouse’s classroom, students work in different parts of the classroom on separate activities, sometimes in groups at their tables. The classroom is one of three at the school, with another one that is currently being set up.
“Instead of working by themselves, they can actually help each other out,” Millhouse said. “The way it’s designed, it makes it to where there’s no front of the room, so I can move around and they pretty much have to follow me wherever I go.”
In some ways, Millhouse has changed her teaching style to incorporate more of what the classroom can offer. For example, an enlarged whiteboard encompasses two walls, allowing her to right on one side for a group, yet go to another end of the board to address another group.
“I can actually teach from any part of the room instead of being on the other part of the room,” she said.
Millhouse said that since students have been working in the classroom for more than one month, she has noticed better test scores and a better atmosphere for the students to work in.
“Since they’re working together, they’re able to ask a partner or somewhere in their group about assignments,” she said.
Butler said she is very encouraged by the response students have had to this classrooms.
“I hope everyone can have this,” she said. “It would be great for our school for everyone to have this kind of room.”
Daria said the school system would be monitoring the different classrooms and getting feedback from teachers to see whether or not they would like to see more prototype classrooms in the future.
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Information from: The Tuscaloosa News, https://www.tuscaloosanews.com
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