Project #1- The Dewey School

For this project I did a recreation of what I thought a Dewey School would look like today. Below are the photos I took of my completed project. When doing this project, I thought about keeping an open classroom that could accommodate for any and all kinds of activities. As you will notice, I have no traditional desks in the classroom. The reason for this, is that most activities are hands on and require group and team working. I designed the classroom so that tables and chairs could be brought in, but are not a part of everyday class. You can click on any of the photos below to make them larger and to get a better view!

This is an aerial view of the classroom. As you can notice, it has lots of open space and is very adaptable to all kinds of activities

This is a picture of the reading corner. It is stocked with books from all different subject and are for students to use at their leisure.

This is a picture of the computer and creation station. Dewey talks a lot about learning through discovery. He also discusses how his class often times recreated things to fit time periods they were studying.

Below you will see the picture of the class garden. I made the space very adaptable so things like a garden could be added when students are discovering and learning different things. Dewey's classrooms needed to be adaptable to projects like this. Much of the learning that the students at the Dewey school did was through experience, so it wouldn't be odd to find an indoor garden or a log cabin inside a classroom at the Dewey school.

This is the classroom kitchen. Dewey often talks about the learning that occurs through cooking. I thought that it would be a good idea to include a full kitchen in my classroom for this reason.

I wanted to make sure that my classroom included artwork and objects from different time periods and different parts of the world. I think that Dewey would have had elements like this in his classroom to help spark the interest of students into different areas.

This corner houses the tv and couch.

Below is the stage. Dewey often had his students recreate different time periods or dress up as historical characters. I think that a stage in a modern classroom would help to create a space to perform more of these activities.

This is another overview of the classroom to give you an idea how spacious and open it is.