Examples of 2018 Flexible Seating Purchases
Flexible Seating - What Does the Research Say?
Flexible seating can range from just allowing students to choose their seats or move around the classroom more frequently to elaborately planned rooms with a wide range of seating options that allow students to choose to work at different heights and in different positions. Furniture options include couches, floor pillows, mats, bean bag chairs, yoga ball seats, stools, low tables, standing work surfaces, and traditional chair and desk combinations. Often a meeting place with room for everyone is needed.
Generally, a flexible classroom allows students to move furniture and gives them opportunities to work separately or in groups, though groups are emphasized. Use of technology through mobile devices can also allow for some creative settings, though experts note that flexible seating is often meant to include collaboration and that sometimes online activities discourage it.
There has been considerable research on the benefits of students being able to move around for their health and fitness—and suggestions that it helps their brains too. In her book Smart Moves, Why Learning is Not All in your Head, education consultant Carla Hannaford suggests that some 13 studies show that when students move around in a classroom, they are more engaged and can better “anchor new information and experience into neural networks.”
Former teacher Eric Jensen, now a researcher and consultant, concluded in a 2000 reportthat a review of research shows physical activity benefits learning. “Movement increases heart rate and circulation, enhances spatial learning, provides a break, allows cognitive maturation, stimulates release of beneficial chemicals, counteracts excessive sitting, and affirms the value of implicit learning,” he reported. He recommends teachers have students move around regularly, but also stand and sit in different postures, including “lying down, perching, and squatting.”
In a study funded by a company that makes alternative seating, ergonomic scientist Dieter Breithecker says “static-passive sitting and a lack of physical activity during lessons leaves the neuromuscular system unchallenged and leads to degeneration.” According to Breithecker, “[a] child’s healthy brain will signal its need for a dynamic load shifts unconsciously by rocking or fidgeting on conventional chairs,” and therefore recommends alternatives for seating and students being allowed to move about.
Another researcher reported that what he called active dynamic seating “affects body and mind and soul” and another report found stability balls improve math test scores considerably. Yet in another study, student performance was no better for students using them. There is other research that finds no dramatic benefit to flexible seating, but little that reports any harm, though some suggests classroom management may suffer or worsen if a teacher already has those concerns.
**Information taken from Education World.
Generally, a flexible classroom allows students to move furniture and gives them opportunities to work separately or in groups, though groups are emphasized. Use of technology through mobile devices can also allow for some creative settings, though experts note that flexible seating is often meant to include collaboration and that sometimes online activities discourage it.
There has been considerable research on the benefits of students being able to move around for their health and fitness—and suggestions that it helps their brains too. In her book Smart Moves, Why Learning is Not All in your Head, education consultant Carla Hannaford suggests that some 13 studies show that when students move around in a classroom, they are more engaged and can better “anchor new information and experience into neural networks.”
Former teacher Eric Jensen, now a researcher and consultant, concluded in a 2000 reportthat a review of research shows physical activity benefits learning. “Movement increases heart rate and circulation, enhances spatial learning, provides a break, allows cognitive maturation, stimulates release of beneficial chemicals, counteracts excessive sitting, and affirms the value of implicit learning,” he reported. He recommends teachers have students move around regularly, but also stand and sit in different postures, including “lying down, perching, and squatting.”
In a study funded by a company that makes alternative seating, ergonomic scientist Dieter Breithecker says “static-passive sitting and a lack of physical activity during lessons leaves the neuromuscular system unchallenged and leads to degeneration.” According to Breithecker, “[a] child’s healthy brain will signal its need for a dynamic load shifts unconsciously by rocking or fidgeting on conventional chairs,” and therefore recommends alternatives for seating and students being allowed to move about.
Another researcher reported that what he called active dynamic seating “affects body and mind and soul” and another report found stability balls improve math test scores considerably. Yet in another study, student performance was no better for students using them. There is other research that finds no dramatic benefit to flexible seating, but little that reports any harm, though some suggests classroom management may suffer or worsen if a teacher already has those concerns.
**Information taken from Education World.