1. What in the World is a Personalized Learning Environment?
By Jennie Parker
Third Grade Teacher
Cox Mill Elementary School

2. What is a Personalized Learning Environment?
A classroom that allows for Personalized Learning Environments will have a variety of seating/working spaces.
Students will be able to figure what arrangement works best for them, including the possibility of having a different arrangement every day or for different activities.
Students of different sizes with different needs will each be able to find their best environment instead of conforming to a one-size-fits-all desk arrangement.
PLEs provide for movement during working as well as ease with regrouping to work in pairs or teams.
You can find more information by looking up Personalized Learning Environment, Flexible Seating or Deskless Classroom.
See a few examples from our classroom on the next page…

3. Examples From Our Classroom
This student chooses to stand and use two workspaces to spread out and stay organized.
This student chooses to work alone in the classroom library in order to stay focused and minimize distractions.
While each student is working on a laptop, they have all found different ways to be most comfortable and engaged.

4. Why do we have desks in the first place?
Clunky wooden desks and chairs all in rows facing the teacher or board at the front of the room helped to produce generations of workers with the endurance to sit twelve hour shifts at factory work stations doing their piece of work under the watchful eye of a boss. As manufacturing became more outsourced, the paradigm shifted slightly to include cubicles and facing a screen.
For more information:

5. The Shifting Paradigm
Fortunately, the idea of workers being given a task to complete individually by a boss or manager is shifting to one of teamwork, creativity and innovation. Workers’ laptops or tablets are starting to take the place of the entire desk and supplies while also linking teammates wirelessly together.

6. “Co-Working Spaces”
In the last decade, some of the most innovative companies such as Google, Etsy and Pixar have worked to change the paradigm more significantly. With architectural designs and seating flexibility, the open-air office concept is creating spaces for the most advanced innovations seen in countless areas of industry. The focus is on “co-working” as flexible teams work using social media and the idea of community.
For more information:

7. But what are the cons?
This doesn’t mean there aren’t any drawbacks. A major study of open-air offices including cubicle cities cited that the majority of employee dissatisfaction fell into the categories of noise issues and lack of privacy.
Creators of open-air offices are beginning to work with sound design professionals to implement noise reduction technology and to create more enclosed and private seating choices for when employees have that need.
For more information:

9. This sounds good, Mrs. Parker, but my child is only eight
This sounds good, Mrs. Parker, but my child is only eight. Why should a third grader have a Personalized Learning Environment?
I am implementing this for the same reasons the innovative companies are:
Emphasis on teamwork (for more info: )
Increased creativity and innovation (for more info: )
Better use of space
Improved physical and mental flexibility
Better health (for more info: )
Increased focus, motivation and engagement (for more info: )

10. But what about next year when my child gets a teacher with a traditional-desk classroom?
Allowing students to have their own personalized learning environment helps them to learn what works best for them and promotes flexibility in seating, so your child will still be able to utilize any desk arrangement.
For more information:

11. Without a desk, where will my child keep supplies?
Eventually most supplies will be on a student’s laptop or tablet, but I realize that we’re not quite there yet. Therefore supplies that are easily shared such as pencils, scissors and glue sticks will be provided for every student, every day, from the supplies brought in at the beginning of the year by everyone. If we run out, I will let you know through our newsletter.
For other supplies like folders, agendas and notebooks, each child will be provided with an organizer that they will keep with them during the day just as they would a laptop. This also eliminates organizational issues that lead to messy desks and lost assignments.

12. Is this really all that different than the previous classroom designs my child has experienced?
No. We have various table shapes and sizes with various seating choices and areas around the room where students can meet as pairs or groups.
Most classes already use all of those designs as part of their Reading, Writers’ and Math Workshop models.
The only big difference is the way supplies are kept. However, some traditional-desk classrooms have been sharing supplies for years.

13. What about those drawbacks of noise, privacy, and even lack of structure?
Those are issues for all classrooms. It is up to the teacher to train the students as to what is acceptable when and to enforce those expectations. However, our class’s variety of seating provides for more opportunity for privacy and less noise than when students are forced together by desk arrangements. Structure comes from the discipline plan of a classroom being reinforced by the teacher and followed by the students—not from seating arrangements. Therefore successfully allowing for Personalized Learning Environments requires a teacher who highly values structure while allowing for students to be individuals who recognize and utilize their best environments for learning.
Example of a classroom allowing Personalized Learning Environments with students spread out, focused, and using some areas for privacy.

14. Please support your child’s experience with our Personalized Learning Environment
As the population continues to surge, space is becoming one of our quickest, dwindling resources. We feel that very heavily in our classrooms as class sizes continue to increase. Without desks, our class is making better use of space and supplies while encouraging teamwork, creativity, innovation, flexibility and active lifestyles.