ABSTRACT
Our director of teaching and learning went to a conference and learned about a new trend in school design which included using modular furniture and movable technology to create flexible classroom spaces. He asked the tech coaches in our district to help bring this idea to our district. None of us had ever done anything like that before. I mean, we aren’t administrators, but we were excited about the idea, so we said yes. He sent us to visit other districts so we could see what it looks like, ask questions, and learn from their experts. We also went to a conference on rethinking school design which was really interesting. We asked the director to buy flexible furniture for two schools and see what happened. When we visited those classrooms, we were surprised to see that the teachers weren’t doing anything different with the desks. They were still in rows or groups. I talked with one teacher about how you could make some of the desks standing desks and why you would do that. I also talked with her about using a second screen in the classroom so everyone could see the screen easily. She was interested but had not thought about those things! I realized we had forgotten a really important piece in trying something new—teaching the teachers how to use it. That’s tough for me to say, as a coach, but it’s true. At the end of the semester, when the district team went through and saw that the desks weren’t being used differently, we lost our funding to bring flexible furniture to other classrooms. Even the director whose idea it was didn’t back us. I realized there were a number of missteps we made with that project. That was a rough experience, but I learned a lot from it.
