by Natalie Schlueter
Teachers have had to brave a storm that has taken the K-12 teaching environment to an entirely new level of mobility and technology savvy. With the continued effort to keep children and teachers safe, mobility has become of the utmost importance in the classroom.
Mobile teaching can be difficult as it requires much planning and consolidation of necessary goods to ensure efficiency and effectiveness. It can be hard to imagine an entire classroom on a single cart to function throughout the day, but it can be done with the right materials and cart in place.
AV carts are a traditional solution that can offer teachers an incredible amount of support to function throughout the day and effectively handle a classroom of students. Find out what you can do to upgrade your mobility in teaching by reading below.
Even if your school district is not planning on moving specials teachers from classroom to classroom, or even moving core class teachers from class to class, it is still important to have mobility throughout the classroom.
Observational teaching is important to any teacher strategy in the classroom. How do students interact as the teacher moves throughout the classroom. Walking around the classroom provides teachers with an in-depth look at what each of their students are accomplishing and if they are staying on task or not. This allows for a strong assessment of each student’s focus skills and learning capabilities (Malcolm Van Blerkom, Measurement and Statistics for Teachers).
Providing the most support for students and your assessment report could potentially mean observing by standing in the front of the classroom, but could also mean in-depth research by moving from space to space.
This mobility can be even more attainable with a solution that takes your desk essentials and moves them around with you, wherever you go.
Moving around in a singular classroom all day is one feat, but moving from classroom to classroom a dozen times over in a single day is another. In years’ past, specials teachers had a singular space that students would commute to and from to receive their non-core learning experiences. This meant that the thought of mobility for specials did not need to be considered.
Now, we are living in an environment where mobility is of the essence for specials teachers. Moving from class to class is not easy when teacher stations are already set up in the school for a stationary space. Putting a teacher station on wheels can be a difficult task for complex set-ups. When setting up a teacher cart for mobility throughout a school, here are some things to consider:
There are many considerations when becoming a mobile unit. Prioritizing the top needs versus wants is the first step to becoming mobile, successfully.
This most deeply affects students in the ability, or lack thereof, to separate their cognitive and physical spaces out from each other while having teachers transfer throughout a singular classroom environment.
To fully understand what is expected of students, let’s define what cognitive and physical spaces are. Cognitive space is what is expected of students socially. This is defined by either a free environment where the students are responsible for their own actions and are expected to learn from experience or a controlled environment where the teacher dictates, or more strongly advises, certain behavior to manage a classroom in the way that is expected of the teacher, not the students.
The physical space is defined as the actual learning environment that the students are located in. Depending on the teacher’s cognitive space, the physical space should emulate this teaching style.
This sounds very explanatory and easy to accomplish, but what happens when a classroom is set up with a certain teacher in mind and multiple teachers, with different teaching and classroom management styles end up infiltrating the established environment throughout the day? Students could be confused with the way they are learning and what is expected of them.
This is why continuity is important and dictations of teaching style must be made clear by visual cues or other physical environment changes to assist students in adapting to teacher requirements.
How can this be established while in a mobile environment? Consistency in mobile teaching carts or stations with clear delineations of what is expected based on physical cues.
Over time, many different mobile teaching solutions have watered down the market making it hard to determine what solution is a good fit for you and your students. Finding a mobile teaching station can take time to sort through what you need in your solution and many carts offer different things to provide productivity.
Bretford offers mobile teaching carts to support your every need at every step of the way. When investing in Bretford teacher carts, you receive:
Bretford has two mobile teaching carts or stations: The Mobile Instructor Cart (MIC) and the Adjustable Height Cart.
What is the difference between the two? If you are looking for a traditional solution that has the maximum amount of space on top to use, the Adjustable Height Cart is for you. If you are looking to stay hydrated, or have an ample amount for small belongings on your cart, the MIC is for you. Why is this?
With two cup holders on the Mobile Instructor Cart you have the ability to store smaller items like pens or pencils, craft supplies, water bottles, phones, or other potentially breakable or easy to lose items while moving about. This perk does come with a cost, as it limits the amount of open space on the top to utilize freely.
The Adjustable Height Cart comes with all of the features and benefits of the MIC, but with an open space on the top to work efficiently.
Using small footprint, durable, and colorful carts like the Mobile Instructor Cart and the Adjustable Height Cart will allow you to easily navigate a mobile classroom environment and provide you with the support you need to effectively teach students.
Connect with one of our experts today by calling (800) 521-9614 to find your mobile technology cart to assist you, no matter the situation or space.
The Mobile Instructor Cart is the teacher’s ultimate assistant with built-in cup holders to ensure that all essentials are supported on the cart for extreme mobility.
The Adjustable Height Cart offers the most amount of surface work space to provide maximize productivity and support all day learning and teaching needs.
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