How to Make Your Classroom a Thinking Space

Jessica Jones

ET

Boss, S. (2013, March 26). How to make your classroom a thinking space. Edutopia. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/thinking-through-project-based-learning-suzie-boss?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=pos&utm_campaign=blog-thinkingspaces

Summary: Starting with an exert from Thinking Through Project-Based Learning: Guiding Deeper Inquiry, a new book by Jane Krauss and Suzie Boss, Boss asks readers to imagine a creative work environment. After readers come up with their image of a creative environment, Boss discuss how schools are a work environment for both teachers and student, therefore it should be a creative environment for problem-based learning. Boss then discusses how to make your classroom more creative, providing examples from schools around the country. A total of eleven suggestions are made, most of them a small adjustment that could easily be made in most classrooms.

Evaluation: After having read this article, I see how easy it is to incorporate creativity into the classroom space. Not working in a school presently, I am also trying to see how we can incorporate some of these ideas into the public library. While many suggestions, such as “Independent Work” and “Conversational Classroom” are strictly for classrooms, libraries can incorporate color, a video booth (for programming or Summer Reading Program), and new furniture. With suggestions easy enough and inexpensive enough for all teachers to incorporate, Boss is helping make it easier for students to do problem-based learning.