Gerald Ajam

Work / Learning spaces / Patterns

Ten patterns of activity, and the rooms they want

A pattern starts from what learners are doing, not from the furniture. Each one names the spatial, social and technological conditions that make that activity easy, and the ways it usually goes wrong. The room is the last decision, not the first.

Status Practice-derived

Published September 2026

Learning spaces
01Direct instructionFor explaining something new clearly, once, to everyone at the same time.
Learning action
Listening, watching a worked example, and checking understanding against it. The explanation carries the new idea; the learner’s job is to follow it and notice where it stops making sense.
Social configuration
Whole class, facing one source. Talk runs mostly from teacher to class, with short bursts of pair talk or mini-whiteboard responses to check that it is landing.
Spatial arrangement
Every learner can see the board and the teacher’s face without turning round. No one sits more than a few rows back, and nobody has their back to the front.
Technology
One display large enough to read from the back row, a visualiser for worked examples, and mini-whiteboards or a quick response tool for checking. Nothing on learners’ desks that competes.
Teacher position
At the front, but free to move. Standing beside the display rather than behind a desk, and stepping into the aisles during checks to read responses.
Learner agency
Low by design, and that is fine for short stretches. Learners choose when to ask, and the checks give every learner a turn to show what they think.
Transitions
Should be the cheapest move in the room: turn to face the front. If getting into this pattern takes furniture moving, the room was set for something else.
Typical failure modes
  • Students in grouped tables sit side-on to the board all lesson and twist their necks to follow the explanation.
  • The explanation runs for forty minutes because nothing in the room prompts the teacher to stop and check.
  • The worked example is on a slide that moves on before anyone has copied or understood it.
02SeminarFor building understanding through structured discussion of a shared text or problem.
Learning action
Arguing from evidence, responding to someone else’s point, and changing your mind in public. The shared text or source is the anchor everyone returns to.
Social configuration
One group of roughly eight to twenty, talking to each other rather than through the teacher. Turn-taking is carried by routine, not by hands up.
Spatial arrangement
A circle or hollow square, so every face is visible to every other. The text sits on the table in front of each person, not on a screen behind them.
Technology
Usually none. Paper copies that can be annotated, and perhaps one board for recording claims as they emerge. Laptops open in a seminar mostly become places to hide.
Teacher position
Seated in the circle, at the same height as everyone else. Speaking less and later, and redirecting questions back to the group.
Learner agency
High. Learners choose what to pick up, whom to answer and when to speak. The routine protects that, so the loudest voices do not decide everything.
Transitions
Chairs into a circle takes two or three minutes if it is practised, and much longer if it is not. Tables often need to go to the walls.
Typical failure modes
  • The circle is formed, but every comment is still addressed to the teacher, so it is a lecture with the chairs moved.
  • Five students do all the talking and the rest watch, because nothing in the routine asks the others in.
  • The group is too large for a single circle, so the back half of it becomes an audience.
03CritiqueFor improving work by looking at it together and naming what would make it better.
Learning action
Looking closely at a piece of work, describing what it does, and suggesting specific improvements. The work is the object of attention, not the person who made it.
Social configuration
Whole class or large group around a small number of pieces, or small groups rotating through a gallery. Protocols such as kind, specific and helpful carry the norms.
Spatial arrangement
The work is displayed where everyone can see it at a useful distance: on walls at eye level, on a visualiser, or laid out on a cleared table with room to stand around it.
Technology
A visualiser or shared screen so detail is visible to the whole room. Sticky notes or a comment layer for feedback that stays attached to the work.
Teacher position
Beside the work, not in front of it. Modelling the language of critique early, then stepping back and moderating tone.
Learner agency
Moderate to high. Learners decide what to notice and what to recommend, and the maker decides which feedback to act on.
Transitions
Needs wall space or a cleared surface ready before the lesson starts. Pinning up thirty pieces mid-lesson eats the time the critique needed.
Typical failure modes
  • The work is on a screen too small to read from the back, so feedback is about whatever the front row could see.
  • Feedback is general praise because nobody taught what useful critique sounds like.
  • The gallery walk becomes a social walk, because there is nothing to write and nowhere to put it.
04Collaborative problem solvingFor tackling a problem that genuinely needs more than one head.
Learning action
Proposing, testing and refining a solution to a problem no one member could solve alone. The thinking has to be made visible so others can build on it.
Social configuration
Groups of three or four with a shared task and interdependent roles. Large enough to divide the thinking, small enough that nobody can disappear.
Spatial arrangement
Tables pushed together so the group faces a shared surface, with enough gap between groups to hear your own conversation. Each group can reach a vertical writing surface.
Technology
One shared device per group, not one each, placed where all can see it. Whiteboards or large paper matter more than screens because they keep reasoning in view.
Teacher position
Moving between groups, listening before speaking. Positioned so that the whole room is in view even while crouched at one table.
Learner agency
High within the problem. Groups choose their approach and divide the work, while the teacher sets the problem and the constraints.
Transitions
Moving from rows to clusters needs a practised routine and a known layout. Without both, it takes five minutes and the problem is forgotten on the way.
Typical failure modes
  • The tables are moved into groups, but the task is individual, so students sit together and work alone.
  • One device per student means four people in a group looking at four different screens.
  • The room is so loud that groups stop listening to each other and one person does the thinking.
05StudioFor sustained independent work on a project, with feedback available when needed.
Learning action
Working over time on a substantial piece: drafting, revising, getting stuck and getting unstuck. The work carries across lessons, so it has to live somewhere between them.
Social configuration
Mostly individual or small teams, working side by side. Peer help is informal and frequent; the teacher is one source of feedback among several.
Spatial arrangement
Personal or team work areas with room to spread out, visible work in progress on walls, and a quieter corner for focus. Materials within reach without asking.
Technology
Devices available when the work needs them, and a shared place where drafts are stored and visible. Reference material close at hand, digital or physical.
Teacher position
Circulating, conferencing one to one, or seated at a known spot where learners come with questions. Visible and available, rarely at the front.
Learner agency
High. Learners manage their own time, choose the next step and decide when to ask for help, within milestones the teacher sets.
Transitions
Works best when the room stays set up between lessons. If the work has to be packed away at the bell and rebuilt next time, a quarter of each lesson disappears.
Typical failure modes
  • Work in progress has nowhere to live, so each lesson starts with ten minutes of unpacking.
  • Independence becomes drift, because there are no visible milestones and no one checks progress.
  • The teacher sits at the desk and only the confident students walk over to ask.
06MakingFor learning by building a physical or digital object that has to work.
Learning action
Designing, building, testing and fixing something. The object gives honest feedback: it either works or it does not, and the reason is usually visible.
Social configuration
Individuals or small teams, with a lot of looking over at what others are doing. Copying a good technique is part of the learning.
Spatial arrangement
Durable work surfaces, clear zones for messy and clean work, tools stored at point of use, and floor space to move safely around people holding things.
Technology
The tools of the craft, from glue guns to microcontrollers, stored so their absence is noticed. Power and charging where the work happens, not only along one wall.
Teacher position
On the floor, watching for safety and for the moment someone is about to give up. Often demonstrating a technique to a small group at one bench.
Learner agency
High in design choices, constrained by materials, safety rules and the brief. Learners choose how to solve it; the teacher chooses what counts as solved.
Transitions
Setting up and clearing away are part of the lesson and need time budgeted for them. A making lesson without a tidy-up routine ends in chaos or overruns.
Typical failure modes
  • Tools live in a locked cupboard, so every request becomes a queue at the teacher.
  • Everyone follows the same instructions and builds the same thing, so no one has to design anything.
  • The object gets built but never tested, so the lesson teaches assembly rather than design.
07InvestigationFor asking a question and gathering evidence to answer it.
Learning action
Posing a question, collecting data, and reasoning from it to a claim. In geography this might be fieldwork; in science, an experiment; in history, working through sources.
Social configuration
Pairs or small teams, each with a clear part of the data to collect. Findings are pooled, so each team depends on the others’ care.
Spatial arrangement
Wherever the evidence is: outside, in a lab, or at tables with sources spread out. A shared wall or board where data from all teams comes together.
Technology
Tools for collecting and recording, such as sensors, cameras or a shared spreadsheet that every team can add to. A display for looking at the combined data as a class.
Teacher position
Setting up the question and methods, then moving between teams to check that the data is being collected carefully. At the shared display when results come together.
Learner agency
Moderate to high. Learners may frame sub-questions and choose methods, but the rigour of the method is not negotiable.
Transitions
The move from collecting to analysing is the one most often lost. It needs a fixed point in the lesson and a place where all the data lands.
Typical failure modes
  • The data is collected but never pooled, so each team draws a conclusion from a sample of five.
  • The method is so tightly scripted that learners follow steps without knowing what question they answer.
  • Fieldwork ends at the bell and the analysis waits a week, by which time no one remembers the site.
08ReflectionFor stepping back to consolidate what was learned and decide what to do next.
Learning action
Recalling, connecting and evaluating: what did I do, what did I learn, what would I change? Reflection turns an experience into something that transfers.
Social configuration
Mostly individual, sometimes followed by a pair or small-group share. The quiet comes first, because thinking out loud too early lets the fastest voice set the answer.
Spatial arrangement
Somewhere calm, with low visual clutter and space between people. A change of posture or position helps signal that the mode has changed.
Technology
A journal, paper or a simple digital log. Anything that keeps the record so that reflections can be read back later and compared.
Teacher position
Quiet and still, often seated. Giving a sharp prompt, then protecting the silence rather than filling it.
Learner agency
High in content, low in form. Learners decide what they think; the prompt and the time are set so reflection actually happens.
Transitions
Usually the last five minutes, and so the first thing cut. It survives only when it is a fixed routine with a fixed place in the lesson.
Typical failure modes
  • Reflection is squeezed into the last two minutes while bags are being packed.
  • The prompt is “what did you learn today?”, so every answer repeats the lesson title.
  • Reflections are written and never read again, by the learner or anyone else.
09PerformanceFor presenting, performing or demonstrating learning to an audience.
Learning action
Presenting an argument, a piece of work or a skill, and responding to questions. Knowing there is a real audience changes how carefully people prepare.
Social configuration
One person or team presenting, everyone else as audience with a job to do, such as noting a question or scoring against criteria.
Spatial arrangement
A clear front or stage area with good sightlines from every seat, and acoustics that let a nervous voice carry without shouting. Space for the next group to wait.
Technology
A reliable display the presenter can control, a clicker that works, and ideally a way to record. Every minute spent on cables is taken from a nervous presenter.
Teacher position
In the audience, not beside the presenter. Taking notes, managing time and asking the question that stretches the presenter.
Learner agency
High for presenters, who decide content and delivery. The audience needs a defined task, or it has no agency at all.
Transitions
Switching between presenters should take under a minute. Files loaded beforehand, a running order on the board, and a known place to stand.
Typical failure modes
  • Presenters talk to the screen because the laptop is behind them and they cannot see their own slides.
  • The audience has nothing to do, so after the second group nobody is listening.
  • Half the lesson goes on connecting laptops, so the last groups present in a rush or not at all.
10Hybrid participationFor including learners who are not in the room as full participants.
Learning action
Any of the other patterns, done by a group split across the room and a screen. The test is whether remote learners can contribute, not only watch.
Social configuration
Mixed in-room and remote learners, ideally with remote learners paired with someone in the room so they have a way in to the conversation.
Spatial arrangement
Camera and microphones placed to capture the room’s conversation, not only the teacher. Remote learners on a screen at eye level where the room naturally looks.
Technology
Room microphones that pick up everyone, a camera that can show both teacher and board, and a shared digital workspace that both groups edit.
Teacher position
Within camera view and close to a microphone, and keeping a visible check on the remote side. Often helped by a learner who watches the chat.
Learner agency
Easily lower for remote learners, who cannot turn to a neighbour or catch the teacher’s eye. The design has to put that agency back deliberately.
Transitions
Every change of pattern has to be carried over to the remote side too. Moving into groups in the room needs a matching move into breakout rooms.
Typical failure modes
  • Remote learners hear the teacher clearly and the rest of the room not at all, so discussion shuts them out.
  • The camera points at the whiteboard, and the people talking are all out of shot.
  • The chat fills with questions that nobody in the room notices until the end.
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