Why Flexible Classroom Design Matters for All Learners: Educator

How early collaboration between teachers, administrators, and designers creates inclusive learning environments that support every student. 

In this ongoing series, we’ll review strategies for designing classrooms that are effective for ALL learners – and from the point of view of all stakeholders – from educators, designers, therapists and more. Early collaboration and buy-in from everyone involved can make or break a project. We’re here to help facilitate this dialogue.

Rethinking Classroom Design for All Students

The quaint schoolhouse, the institutional classroom, the stereotypical learning space—up until recent years, each evoked a fixed image: melamine-topped desks in neat rows, monochromatic plastic chairs, fixed seat assignments, and a podium at the “head” of the class.

Thankfully, the “eyes-front-and-center” paradigm of education is fading fast. Educators like Alyssa Marshall, former special education coordinator and now assistant principal at Freedom Middle School, Spotsylvania, Virginia are driving a new vision: one where inclusive classroom design supports not only students with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), but all learners.

What Is Sensory Processing Disorder?

Sensory Processing Disorder is characterized by difficulties in processing sensory information. These challenges may appear as over-responsivity (a child is highly reactive to sensory input) or under-responsivity (a child may not react to sensory inputs in expected ways).

SPD is often associated with Autism or ADHD, but many children with SPD have neither condition. And because SPD manifests differently for every child, flexible learning environments are key. “One key message I could offer for supporting those with SPD is to design for the whole student,” says Marshall.

Design Should Benefit All Students

While classroom design strategies for SPD aim to reduce sensory overload, they also improve the learning environment for general education students. Patricia Cadigan M. Ed., ALEP, Chief Development Officer at Artcobell, sees this crossover every day: “We’re beginning to recognize that so-called ‘mainstream’ students often respond well to thoughtful accommodations that we once classified for SPD.”

Consider the everyday chaos of a school; bright lights, loud bells, crowded hallways, constant transitions. These conditions can be overwhelming for every learner and challenge focus, comfort, and engagement. Inclusive classroom design reduces stress, improves focus, and creates environments where all students thrive.

Design Strategies That Support Every Learner

Here are a few classroom design strategies that benefit both students with SPD and the general student population:

• Visual Schedules: Clear, dynamic displays help manage expectations and ease transitions between activities.
• Movement: flexible seating and mobile work surfaces give students agency and balance movement with focus.
• Targeted Lighting and Acoustics: Using light covers, natural lighting, and sound-dampening materials reduces overstimulation.
• Exercise Infrastructure: Climbing features, swings, or active seating options provide outlets for energy and improve classroom regulation.

These strategies embody principles of Universal Design for Learning, practices originally created to support special education that now serve as best practices for every student.

The Importance of Early Collaboration

Too often, schools address sensory needs reactively—after students are already struggling. Marshall and Cadigan stress that the best outcomes come when teachers, administrators, designers, therapists, and parents collaborate early in the planning process.

When stakeholders align during the programming and design phase, they can:

• Prioritize resources where they’ll have the most impact

• Share insights from lived classroom experience

• Reduce the need for costly retrofits later

• Ensure that design solutions are proactive, not reactive

Better outcomes begin with advanced planning. By building inclusive strategies into the DNA of the school environment, we create spaces that truly support diverse learners.

Building the Future of Inclusive Classrooms

Designing for an effective learning environment is not just about helping a specific group of students—it’s about rethinking the classroom as a whole. With thoughtful design, proactive planning, and collaboration across all stakeholders, schools can create inclusive, flexible learning environments that benefit every learner.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of our series, where we’ll hear from a physical therapist on collaborating with architecture and design firms to create classrooms informed by real-world experience.