Moving the physical classroom from static to interative

Hi Amelia, great question. Setting up your space as best as you can to allow for collaboration is important. I know secondary is trickier in that sense as you don’t always have one room. I assume you have iPad and in which case the interactivity is in the hands of each student. So it’s really about interactive and engaging learning experiences.

So many ways you can engage students in English. Infographics, Podcasting, Visual Notetaking, Inquiry, Animation and of course the many ideas in the Everyone Can Create Guides ~ Drawing, Photography, Video & Music . For more interactivity as far as movement goes you could explore Augmented Reality.

Check out Apples Elements of Learning book to explore ways to make creativity and creation an essential part of learning.

https://books.apple.com/au/book/elements-of-learning/id1367981260

Here are some other great resources in Apple Books from Australia Teachers too. https://books.apple.com/au/book/exploring-australia-with-ipad-year-7-8/id6445080937

https://books.apple.com/au/book/digital-inquiry-capturing-wonder/id6445149849

Good Luck.

Hey Amelia, sounds like your classroom is a really engaging space. I don't have a single physical classroom this year as I share multiple spaces with other teachers so one of the ways I make my classroom more interactive is through the use of online collaboration. I don't have my own single classroom this year, but find by having collaborative spaces like a shared Numbers file students can engage interactively and collaboratively. This can also work with retrieval practices or formative assessment where you can quickly gauge students' understanding.

In a physical classroom, I love the use of QR codes too - have you tried using them for quizzes, story stimulus or even a choose your own adventure? With the quizzes, I have different QR codes around the room and students work similar to a memory game; they need to find the corresponding QR code that matches the question or answer they find. You can print the answers in different colours to make it a little easier, but it's great to get kids up and about in the room, but also it really works to engage their thinking and memory.

I haven't used QR codes for a while, you've inspired me to sort some out to help my Year 12 students with some revision around historical sources. Thanks!