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Getting the Principles Just Right: Classroom Decoration
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson

The benefits of classroom decoration seem intuitive.

After all, we decorate our homes in order to make ourselves — and our guests — comfortable there.

An artist's table, covered with an organized but overwhelming collection on pencils, pens, markers, and so forth

Little wonder that decorating a classroom feels like a natural way to welcome our students, and make them feel right at home.

Also compelling: we can control our classroom decoration.

Whereas so many other parts of teaching life must respond — second by second — to the random chaos of young learners, our classrooms show what we can do when our plans come beautifully to fruition.

And, let’s be honest: we’re often evaluated on classroom decoration. If we can get easy points for decoration on an evaluation form — why not grab them?

To add to all these incentives, let’s add the potential for one more: research. I often see highly specific claims about the benefits of classroom decoration.

For instance, one popular blog post notes that research encourages classroom decorations  — although teachers should leave 20% of wall space blank. (I’ll come back to this number, so it might be worth remembering.)

Beyond Intuition

If our intuition and experience tell us that classroom decorations benefit students, can we find research support for that intuition?

For several years now, research has increasingly thrown those intuitions into doubt.

For the most part, research suggests that classroom decorations can overwhelm students’ limited cognitive resources: working memory, and attention.

Ten years ago, a research team found that kindergarten students learn less in “more” decorated classrooms compared to “less” decorated ones.

Over several years, a research team in Portugal has found that K-16 students score lower on attention and working memory tests taken in busy environments.

Most recently, researchers found that students don’t get used to decorations. That is: decorations distract students in the first week of school, and still distract them 15 weeks later.

If we set intuition (and training) aside, the research-based answer to our question seems clear: less decoration probably results in more concentration and learning.

And yet, in my experience, teachers find this research-based answer unsatisfying…even alarming.

We have, after all, been trained to decorate. We’ve been evaluated on our decorations. The colleagues we most esteem, and the grad-school professors who seemed the wisest, all champion the importance of decoration.

What should we do when our beliefs (decorate more!) crash into research findings (decorate less!).

Guiding Principles

Earlier posts this month have focused on getting details just right. This post, instead, looks at core principles.

First Principle: when research and intuition/training conflict, resist the urge to choose one over the other. Ask if we can improve teaching by drawing on both perspectives.

In this case: can we use research to inform our decorating strategy?

For instance, this well-known review crunches an ENORMOUS amount of data. Only a few of its conclusions focus narrowly on “decoration,” but at least one point strikes me as important.

Specifically, researchers look at the question of “ownership”: the degree to which the students feel like the classroom belongs to them. Their conclusion:

Personal displays by the children create a ‘sense of ownership’ and this was significantly correlated with learning progress.

The word “correlated” is important in that sentence. We can’t say that putting up students’ work causes them to learn more.

But: if both research and our teacherly intuition suggest that personal displays boost learning — that’s a great combination right there.

Second principle: keep the decorations largely academic.

Twenty years ago, I used to have lots of interesting photographs and posters and quotations up in my room. They didn’t relate directly to the material I taught — but they seemed somehow inspiring and energizing.

These days, I keep things much simpler. For instance: I have a set of posters highlighting analytical vocabulary (definitions of “metaphor” and “personification” and “symbolism”).

We have some research suggesting that — in addition to a sense of “ownership” — classroom decorations that highlight academic content can boost learning.

Third principle: investigate research-based claims skeptically.

I noted above that a blog post encourages teachers to leave 20% of the wall space blank. This blog cites the Barrett study to make that claim…but I don’t find evidence to support it anywhere.

Several years ago, I reviewed a book on the subject of classrom design and decoration. It had exactly ZERO footnotes.

When I emailed the author to ask for the research basis of his suggestions, he responded: “It’s ALL based on research.” He did not, however, provide any citations.

So, if someone tells you that “the research shows…,” ask them “what research?” Keep asking until you get an answer.

If you don’t get an answer, you know what to do.

Fourth principle: all in all, less is probably more.

Based on the research cited above, I think our profession has largely gotten in the habit of over-decorating.

It’s painful to admit that old habits might not have been wise; but, now that we know better we can do better.

When we think about each bit of classroom decoration, the question we should ask is not “why should we take it down?” but “am I sure I need to put it up?”

No doubt we can find ways to make our classrooms welcoming, comfortable, and scholarly without overwhelming our students’ cognitive abilities.


Barrett, P., Davies, F., Zhang, Y., & Barrett, L. (2015). The impact of classroom design on pupils’ learning: Final results of a holistic, multi-level analysis. Building and Environment89, 118-133.

Fisher, A. V., Godwin, K. E., & Seltman, H. (2014). Visual environment, attention allocation, and learning in young children: When too much of a good thing may be bad. Psychological science25(7), 1362-1370.

Godwin, K. E., & Kaur, F. (2021). The Decorated Learning Environment: Simply Noise or an Opportunity for Incidental Learning?. In Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (Vol. 43, No. 43).

Godwin, K. E., Leroux, A. J., Seltman, H., Scupelli, P., & Fisher, A. V. (2022). Effect of Repeated Exposure to the Visual Environment on Young Children’s Attention. Cognitive science46(2), e13093.

Rodrigues, P. F., & Pandeirada, J. N. (2018). When visual stimulation of the surrounding environment affects children’s cognitive performance. Journal of experimental child psychology176, 140-149.

Open Classroom Plans: The Effects on Reading
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson

I’ve written frequently over the years about the effects of classroom decoration on learning.

The headline is: althought many teachers have been trained to DECORATE, those decorations can distract students and thereby reduce learning.

We’ve tested this question for students from kindergarten to college.

We’ve tested them in different disciplines.

Heck, we’ve even tested them over very long periods of time (15 weeks!).

Sure enough: students don’t get used to decorations. Instead, they continue to be distracted and to learn less.

Looking past the door handle into an empty classroom

To be clear: I don’t think classrooms should be utterly sterile. But, I do think that research suggests we should take a “less is more” approach to decoration.

This set of findings raises an important corollary: are there other kinds of distraction that should worry us?

How about: distractions from other students…

Experiments Past

Enthusiasm for open classrooms began — I believe — in the 1960s and ’70s.

The basic ideas are:

Philosophically speaking: open classrooms feel less authoritarian — more student-centered than teacher-centered, and

Pedagogically speaking: they allow for a greater variety of combinations and collaborations — across grades, for instance.

The potential hazards, of course, are DISTRACTION. Having all those people and all that noise might make learning much harder.

Of course, this question isn’t easy to research. To do so, we would need…

… large groups of students who

… spend substantial learning time in both environments, and

… measurements that track their relevant academic progress.

Honestly: that’s A LOT to ask of a study.

Crunching the Numbers

I have good news!

A group of scholars in Australia have undertaken just such a study, looking at 7-10 year-old students in several schools.

In this study, researchers tracked classes that switched from open to enclosed to open classrooms (or, the other way around) over three terms.

The measurement of interest: reading words per minute.

Of course, this measurement makes good sense. We teachers REALLY CARE how well our students can read. And this particular measurement correlates with all sorts of academic outcomes.

So, what did the research team find: The envelope please….

Fully two-thirds of students improved more in enclosed classrooms than in open classrooms.

For some students, the classroom difference didn’t matter.

For a few — those with especially good attention, and/or academic background — the open plan resulted in greater improvement.

Those seem like impressive numbers.

Final Thoughts

I’ve looked around for research that contradicts this finding (a habit of mine), and so far I haven’t located anything persuasive. (If you know of such a study, please send it my way!)

Truthfully, I haven’t found lots of research in this field at all — many studies date from the ’70s and ’80s.

In brief, I think we have one very compelling data point. In this study, open classrooms reduce learning for most students, especially those who most need help in school.

If that result holds up with further research, we should be strongly inclined (in most circumstances) to teach students in the self-contained classrooms that foster learning.

Learning Without Borders: New Learning Pathways for all Students by Yong Zhao
Erik Jahner, PhD
Erik Jahner, PhD

In Learning Without Borders: New Learning Pathways for all Students, Yong Zhao outlines an ongoing and necessary paradigm shift in education, offering new ways of thinking and examples from the frontier of this trend. This is a timely piece that highlights the changes that were forced upon us by the pandemic but have been in the works for a long time. The pandemic exacerbated existing cracks in the system but also spotlighted new opportunities. The old boundaries and structures of education need to be transformed if we truly want to create pathways for the success of all students.

This book asks us to fundamentally reorganize our thinking about school and to make it genuinely student-centered. Putting the student at the center of education is a relatively common idea in education, but Yong gives a contemporary angle enabling the reader to systematically build an understanding of emerging roles teachers and students will play in this new education. His book challenges the way we think about pedagogy by integrating discussions of learning pathways, curriculum design, self-directed learning, and existing technology.

At the core of the discussion is an education system that is built around student needs that are determined in partnership with students. But before we can challenge the practices of the system, flawed mindsets are challenged: schools do not prepare students for life — students are already living full lives full of formative experiences, and schools do not transmit knowledge to students — students have unprecedented access to knowledge and are learning all the time without direct instruction.

Along with a changing mindset comes a need for an evaluation of the paths we offer, schools do much more than prepare students for college. Schooling should dynamically align with the individual student pathways, not group students onto the same path. The current structured form of education focuses on curriculum design without students; to support student development, students need to be co-owners of curriculum design. The curriculum should support the students in following their passions and endeavors not in satisfying a list of government determined metrics. Learning needs to be meaningful and Yong helps us ask the right questions to direct our practice.

These changes are not only theoretical but are ready to implement now more than ever before. They are scaffolded by ripening technology that has enabled students to truly take the reins. This has led some to fear a replacement of teachers, but the challenge in education he [proposes is not how technology might replace teachers, but to understand what aspects of learning will be done through technology and what aspects have to be done directly by teachers. He helps the reader find their role in this shift by asking us to question our widely held beliefs and adopt new roles. Students have taken charge of their own learning and we as educators need to gain comfort and facility in acting as life coaches, resource curators, community leaders, and project managers. The challenge is to find the new emerging roles for teachers and students in this new educational ecology.

While Yong critiques ways of thinking he also challenges established and accepted norms. We have new types of students who are often enabled by technology engaging the world in new innovative ways. We are completely ignoring the student entrepreneur in our education approaches, for example. We send these students the message that school does not fit them rather than integrating their skills into the system. In another example, he points out structural flaws in student groupings. We currently ignore basic principles of development by grouping students by age not developmental level or passions. And while the classroom has been seen as a fundamental unit within a school, the new classrooms can span the globe. The book is filled with ideas that help us consider the development of current systems.

One may initially think such a book is only for the progressive school and the changes discussed are above the level of the teacher. However, the attentive reader will notice suggestions for small and large changes that teachers can make in their practice. It is not always about creating a new way, it is often about accepting and becoming aware of the ways that are already practiced in the world around us. Educators can use the principles outlined here to empower students, design classrooms, and engage in ways of practicing education that can affect change.

The crux of this argument is that the system is not addressing student needs and radical redesign is necessary to align with systems of learning that are already taking place.  This book helps the reader see and become part of a new education without borders.