How can we improve the classroom environment to support students' learning? In the Cornerstone schools in which I work, the classroom environment is invariably, and rightly, a key action plan priority. Cornerstone Literacy Coaches work alongside teachers to create vibrant, word-rich, well-organized literacy classrooms where students can access resources easily and use displays to support their learning.

Most teachers want to improve the learning environment in which they teach, and I am struck each year at the Summer Institute when I see participants from Cornerstone schools scanning the displayed samples of students' work and scribbling frantically into their notebooks to take away the good ideas they see. However, the fact that teachers rarely venture beyond the confines of their own classrooms can inevitably limit their imaginations about ways in which to organize the library area, students' desks, bulletin board displays and even the position of the teacher's desk. What can coaches do to broaden those horizons?

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It was a few minutes after nine o'clock on an early fall morning when we walked calmly, but with trepidation, into the sixth graders' space. The students and their teacher were patiently waiting for us, a group of educators who were there to watch the learning in their classroom. Adult-sized chairs were strategically placed around the edge of the children's work areas. We carefully seated ourselves and settled in to see what we would see.

Each of us observers had been assigned a student to watch. I located student #6 and told my brain to concentrate on the observation. I wanted to study the room: what was on the walls, how was the room organized, what was the feeling, the aura, of this special place? I had to force myself to focus on the assigned task.

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