One of the first things a new teacher is excited about doing is setting up and decorating their classroom. Who can blame them? It makes the entire reality of this new career more real. We want our classrooms to be warm, inviting, and cheerful. Classroom decor has been a hot issue over the last few years. Research is pointing directly towards overwhelming classroom decor contributing to sensory overwhelm and distractibility for our students. Certainly we aren’t looking to make our classrooms uncomfortable for our students, so let’s see how and why we can and should make our classroom decor functional and approachable for ALL of our students.
1.) Cluttered visual environments can be distracting to students.
There is so much noise regarding classroom decor in the online space. When I started teaching, Instagram and Pinterest didn’t even exist, and I cannot imagine how much I would have fallen into a comparison trap if they had. When you search “classroom decor” on those platforms, you can be bombarded by jungle themes with bright colors and animal prints, colorful pom poms dangling from ceiling tiles, and inspirational posters covering every inch of walls. It’s…. a lot. While I love how this points to the dedication many teachers have to making their classrooms homey and exciting for their students, we need to consider that they might also be distracting. Research from Fisher, Godwin, and Seltman (2014) tells us that kids are more off task when rooms are considered visually overwhelming with decor that was not relevant to instruction.
2.) Anchor charts really do improve student learning
It’s not ALL doom and gloom, here. Functional classroom decor means that the posters you have hanging from your classroom walls and bulletin boards really serve a purpose. Do you refer to them regularly? Do students know how to and when to use them to support their learning? If you can answer YES, you have functional decor rocking in your room. This research from 2002 tells us that anchor charts and other helpful instructional visual aids really, really do help students with their learning outcomes. Keep it up, teachers!
3.) Visually overstimulating environments translate to lower student academic outcomes
This body of research tells us that classrooms with a “high visual load” were less supportive of high student academic outcomes. Yikes. Not only do we now know that overstimulating rooms can be distracting, they also don’t promote learning. This is enough to tell us what we need to know, right?
Where do we go from here?
One of my favorite classroom decor pieces is plants! They are super functional and they add so much flavor to a classroom without being too cluttered or chaotic.
I love this blog post from Holly at Research and Play about how she created a Reggio-inspired, clean, simplistic, engaging classroom environment for her kindergarteners. Though she teaches general education and early elementary, her ideas and concepts are very easily transferrable across age and subject areas.
Some of my favorite functional decor items in my Teachers Pay Teachers store is this coping skills alphabet, this set of coping skills visuals using real photos, and this social emotional word wall.
