**3.2 Spaces for learning**

The students pointed to spaces such as breakout rooms connected to the classroom and teacher-centred pedagogies as positive, safe and contributing to enhanced learning. Also, the indoor climate of temperature and light was important for how the pupils perceived the learning environment.

#### *3.2.1 Silence*

Several students talked about the importance of silence for feeling safe, as well as being a vital prerequisite for their study and learning in class. Most students regarded the classrooms as safe places, although they experienced insecurity and stress if the corridors outside the classrooms were noisy and crowded. "I can work well here and not be disturbed. I also feel safe because there is always a teacher nearby to call on if something happens. It's quiet here too and help is available if needed" (boy, Year 8).

It would therefore seem that the classrooms close to the central stairway are more exposed to noise than the more peripheral ones. This is partly a result of how the timetable regulates the flows of students between lessons in different parts of the building and partly due to the fact that there is only one central stairway in the building that the students are allowed to use. The classrooms in the wings are separated from the corridors by a small hallway, which means that there is less disturbance there due to less movement and noise.

## *3.2.2 Teacher-centred pedagogies and flexible learning environments*

The students mostly described the science classrooms in a positive way. Science is one of the subjects in which students are taught in groups of 15, rather than 30. The quiet learning environment also added to the students' positive experiences of feeling safe (see **Figure 8**). The students commented positively on the science teachers' enforcement of classroom rules:

*I like the science classrooms because it's always quiet there. There aren't so many people outside the classroom and we often divide ourselves up into two groups so that we have a lot of help and a good working atmosphere. For me that means that it's quiet enough for everyone to work undisturbed. (Boy, Year 8)*

#### **Figure 8.** *A place experienced as positive for learning: Science classroom (boy, Year 8).*

*Students' Digital Photo Stories about School Spaces for Safety and Learning DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101195*

#### **Figure 9.**

*A place experienced as positive for learning: Breakout room (girl, Year 8).*

What the example shows is that the school organizing and pedagogical practice match with the support of the teaching space.

Other places described as positive learning environments by both the boys and the girls were the smaller breakout rooms (see **Figure 9**).

*I learn things better in the turquoise breakout room, because I can concentrate more easily when it's quiet. I've always been curious about everything that happens around me. In the classroom I can easily lose focus. Therefore, it can be nice to sit in a breakout room with fewer people than in a large classroom. (Girl, Year 8)*

Some of the students were very particular about the physical features that helped them to learn, such as the number and placement of windows and the temperature in the room. One boy in Year 9 wrote: "I've just chosen this place that works well for me. I feel very open and focused here due to the very nice windows, space and seating. It's very quiet here. In the physics lab you'd never suffer from heatstroke." The content and equipment in the science rooms offered activities with tactile features, where the artifacts seemed to stimulate the students' interest. It also became clear that some of the artifacts were dangerous and required teachers to be strict about what could and could not be done there. This was experienced by the students as contributing to their emotional safety.

#### **4. Discussion**

This chapter builds on a case study of how to create a sustainable and educational learning environment in a newly opened secondary school in Sweden. The purpose has been to enhance our understanding of how students view their learning environments, both inside and outside the classroom. Furthermore, the focus is on the students' experiences of safe and unsafe places, along with spaces that support or impede their learning. We used a theoretical model to study interaction in learning environments in order to facilitate an understanding of the school's practices and the connection between the physical spaces in the school buildings, how the school is

organized and its pedagogical praxis. The research design of asking the students to describe places in their school by using digital stories consisting of photos and stories opens up alternative ways of obtaining information and facilitating an in-depth understanding of how students perceive their learning environment.

The results show variations in the areas that students view as safe and unsafe and the reasons for this. It became clear that one area could be depicted as safe by one student and unsafe by another. The students also point to safe and unsafe places in the school buildings that the architects, interior designers and school staff have not fully considered in their original designs.

Regarding the physical space and school organizing dimensions, the results show that students gather in certain places, mostly due to the scheduling of breaks and lunchtimes, which points to the management of time as a co-creator of people flows [29]. For an in-depth understanding of learning environments, it is valuable to plan and test how the design of a school building works in relation to the timetable and the organization of the school and to create a staff culture that works in the spaces [10, 11]. The descriptions show how different spaces are used in unintended ways [36]. The significance of "taking place" as a materialized practice, where the movements and sounds of students influence other students, has been highlighted.

Here the results show that a high intensity of student movement and a low staff presence contribute to students perceiving different spaces as unsafe. This aligns with previous research [18] and can be interpreted as resulting from crowded and intense places due to the school's organizing and affordances in the physical spaces. For some students, the situation is experienced as stressful due to the overstimulation of bodily, visual and auditive sensations. Seeking out quiet and empty spaces to retreat to can be viewed as negotiating space to meet a need for retreat. The results thus show the value of creating retreat spaces for students. However, the appropriation of space seems to depend on the intensity and presence of adults, and here there is reason to consider the ways in which different groups of students are allowed to "take place". What kind of lessons are learned if some students continuously take centre stage, while others are left on the periphery?

Ricken [28] argues that the affordances offered by the physical space, the school organizing and the pedagogical practice create conditions for student agency and, by extension, students' learning experiences. The results here show that especially girls express discomfort in certain spaces and situations in the school building, and that they display agency by managing the situations in accordance with their perceived affordances of the building, organizing and praxis. In the light of these results, it would seem that the configuration of different spaces in school needs to be problematized and improved.

When it comes to the relation between physical space and pedagogical praxis, to the same extent that students describe the spaces they experience as unsafe and negative for learning, they also point to those that they experience as safe and positive for learning. The results show that smaller student groups and access to breakout rooms are appreciated by the students. In these environments, the teacher-centred pedagogy is most prevalent. We would like to highlight the tendencies that indicate that student-centred pedagogies create more movement and noisier environments, often as a result of poor acoustics [10, 11]. Achieving a match in an existing environment with new types of organizing and pedagogical praxis may either mean creating smaller groups to accommodate for the changes or remodeling to improve the acoustic quality. Failing to consider these factors may impact students' sense of safety, health and learning.

*Students' Digital Photo Stories about School Spaces for Safety and Learning DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101195*
