7. Piers - all facing out from centre of the room with teaching position in the middle, 31 workstations + teacher
Each pupil workstation is 0.8m wide and 0.65m deep. The room design is based on an area of about 66m² as most classrooms fall short of the recommended 80m² for an ICT suite.
Advantages
Disadvantages
Room with natural discipline - from the centre of the room the teacher can see what every pupil is doing just by glancing to the left and right
No corners
Good visibility for teachers and pupils
Space efficient
All pupils have to turn 90° away from their computers making initial / plenary discussions effective without the need for moving pupils between different parts of the room
None that we have found
Rooms usually have a series of piers facing outwards from the centre line which mean that:
teachers can glance left and right from the natural teaching focus of the room and see every computer screen and every pupil - providing instant information on who needs help or who is drifting off task.
no pupils are sitting with their backs to the teacher.
pupils have less obstructions between them and the teacher, and the whiteboard.
there are no corners with two pupils sitting on top of each other with all the others climbing over both of them to get to the printer, frustratingly often positioned in the back corner of the room, away from the teacher's control.
when teachers want pupils' attention, all pupils have to turn about 90° away from their mouse and keyboard - so that the room acts as a classroom discipline assistant. Most computer room designs act in the opposite way, with badly positioned computer barricades concealing the pupils from the teacher and encouraging them to believe they can get away with anything, particularly when the teacher is assisting another member of the group.
