Upgrades are complete for a $50,000 classroom makeover won by a teacher at Thomas Metcalf School, a university lab school.
Andy Goveia’s classroom now includes multiple new couches, desks that fit into pods for better collaboration, long conference tables that sit up to 10 students, new bookshelves and a storage bin organizer. He said plans for the classroom had to be downsized somewhat to stay within the $50,000 budget, but the classroom is otherwise exactly how he designed it.
Goveia, who teaches seventh and eight grade, submitted a short video showcasing what a classroom makeover could do to further student comfort and productivity, earning more that 23,000 votes to earn the prize sponsored by KL Furniture.
“I think it's a lot better than the old classroom,” said eighth grader Nathan Heinz. “It allows a lot more flexibility for movement throughout, and the chairs are a big improvement.”
Heinz has had a few days to get used to the new classroom. Students took part in a grand reveal Friday to showcase the new look.
“Just watching their reaction to the space, it just verified everything that we had done for the past couple months to make this happen,” said Goveia.
Seventh grader Xavier Davenport’s class entered the classroom in small groups.
“Everybody thought it was really cool,” he said. “We were all like, screaming and stuff. It was really fun.”
“I think it's really important, especially with us being young and energetic like we are, it gives us flexibility to move around,” said Heinz.
The day before, a crew helped unbox the new items and place them where Goveia wanted them in his classroom. He spent the rest of the day doing finishing touches to complete the makeover.
By the end of the week, preexisting items not needed in the new space will be available for teachers from other classrooms to add to their classrooms.
“It was really cool to just stand here for a second in an empty room by myself and go, ‘Wow, this actually happened,’” said Goveia, adding having a space to go to when a student is sore or tired is helpful to keep them productive.
“Also, the nice thing too is with my teaching, I'm going to be able to structure things differently because I have all of these different spaces to use,” he said.
“I can do more large collaborative stuff. I can have individual work. We can have more active learning in one of the couch spaces. And so not only does it meet their developmental needs, it's going to better meet instructional needs.”
