Teaching with the Brain in Mind: Chapter 6 Physical Environments for

Learning
Complete this Reading Guide and present as your Ticket in the Door
Chapter 6 three points stand out concerning learning and the physical environment.
List and explain each (top page 82):
- Physical environments influence how we feel, hear, and see. Those factors, in turn,
influence cognitive and affective performance.
- Some variables exert a much
greater influence on student achievement than others.
-Better awareness, smarter planning, and simple changes can be made in every
environment to improve learning.
There are five variables that have the greatest effect on academic success.
Summarize the reason each variable is important and provide one practical
suggestion for each:
Seating- The location of where a student sits within a classroom influences stress
levels of the students. For example, if a student is placed right under the vent and is
sensitive to the cold, that will hinder that students ability to learn at his or her full
potential.
Practical Suggestion:
provide unattached chairs and movable desks.
Temperature- Temperature is a factor that significantly affects cognition. Studies
have proven that generally, cooler (but not cold) working climates are better than
warmer and hot working climates. Practical Suggestion: Attach a ribbon next to
windows or air conditioner vents to allow students to tell at a glance if air is
circulating, and/or have a silent fan in the classroom.
Lighting- Insufficient mineral and vitamin D intake has been shown to be a
contributing factor in nonverbal cognitive deficiency (Benton & Roberts, 1988).
Many studies have also proven that sources of glare also have a negative effect on
the learning environment in the classroom.
Practical
Suggestion: Maintain a constant, adequate level of bright lighting in your classroom.
Noise- even the slightest noise can be distracting up to 20,000 bits of auditory
stimuli every second, which means that nearly every sound in the range of 20 to
15,000 cycles per second is fair game for processing .
Practical Suggestions: Take stock of
the noise level in your classroom, and do what you can to soften the noise level of
the classroom by, for example, hanging a tapestry. Also, it may help to provide
noise canceling headphones during classwork to the students who are most
distracted by the slightest of sounds.
Building Design- It is suggested that todays schools have become more socially
smart, cognitively supportive, and environmentally friendly. A school building is well
built if it has good acoustics, daytime lighting, Ecology, temperature, ventilation,
learning spaces, optimal views (but not too distracting), school size, and staff areas.
Practical
suggestion: Work at a school that is well designed. For students to learn, grow,
behave, and perform optimally, a smartly designed, high-performance environment

is necessary. Take charge; do your best to support your students in being their best
by orchestrating powerful learning environments.
Explain how you will use colors in your future classroom (reference page 90):
I will use a light blue color as a calming effect so that the students who have
stressful home-lives and/or social-lives will be positively affected by the calming
effect of my classroom.
Create a floor plan for a future school which includes the top design elements firms
are incorporating into school designs: