Dos and don’ts of classroom decorations

Heavily decorated classrooms can bombard students with too much visual information, interfering with their memory and ability to focus, a new study finds. This is just the latest study to examine the relationship between classroom environment and students’ executive functions, which include skills like memory, attention, and self-regulation. While teachers have good intentions when decorating, many classrooms end up being “sensory-rich” in a way that “could hamper children’s learning gains rather than help,” according to psychologists Pedro Rodrigues and Josefa Pandeirada, who coauthored the study.  READ MORE