space for students to be co-located with teachers, which are decorated by the students to give them ownership, and teachers and students only move when necessary to access specialised space (Bunting, A 2004:11–12). Klein found in a 1975 study that third graders with low levels of anxiety were more creative in open schools than in traditional school. Children with high levels of anxiety showed no differences between open-space and traditional school models. Students in open-spaced schools scored higher on preference for novelty and change. The open-space school concept was introduced into the United States in 1965 as an experimental elementary school architecture, where the physical walls separating classrooms were removed to promote movement across class areas by teachers. In an ethnographic study, Murphy revisited a surviving open-space high school to examine teachers' enduring navigation of the reform. Despite the architecture's challenges, participants valued the instructional visibility and close-knit collegiality it enabled. Accordingly, they viewed their district's plans for a new facility of self-contained classrooms with anxiety. However, in practice this is not typical since teachers, following social conventions, tend to teach traditionally as if the walls were still present. Further, modern open-space schools tend to use modular furniture to separate classrooms in a manner similar to "cubicle farms" used in many corporate environments. References Pick et al., "Development of Spatial Cognition", Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, , copyright 1985, page 99) External links Open Classroom as a fad? Flexible Space & Built Pedagogy: Emerging IT Embodiments Built Pedagogies & Technology Practices: Designing for Participatory Learning Piedmont Open IB Middle School Educational environment Education reform Educational facilities