Your students are WAY too loud!

What to expect this week:

6 min. read

Before we begin, we have a favor to ask. We’re trying to reach and support as many teachers as possible. If you like what you’ve been reading so far, tell your teacher besties about us 🙂

This week, we look at how to tackle the noise problem. We also take a peek into why the noise may be more damaging than you think. Here’s how you’ll solve the problem:

• Tech Talk: Using visual cues for an auditory problem 👀 

• Brainy Bits: Loud classrooms = poor performance 😨 

Surplus Scoop

Here’s our weekly roundup of interesting education stories from around the world before we get started. Click each link to learn more:

• Children who eat breakfast are actually happier - click to find out why 🥚 

• Surprise - teachers who choose their own PD (like The PEN Weekly) are happier and teach better 😎 

• More schools are opting for artificial grass on the playground - ever wonder why? 🦗 

Tech Talk

A free solution to your noisy classroom

The Problem:

Even your best lesson plan won’t land if students are in their own (loud) conversations. At the start of the school year, getting those routines down that allow for a focused environment is crucial for student success.

Having multiple ways of alerting students to ‘be ready to learn’ can also help keep them engaged and on their toes. But it’s not just about having them hear your lesson - a quieter room is also best for everyone’s health.

Traditional shouting to get their attention is rough on your vocal chords, but it also impacts their mental health (not to mention yours too!).

So how can we get their attention quickly, in a calm way that doesn’t have you reaching for a soothing tea at the end of the day? Remember when we said that visual learners are the most popular? Well, it’s time we take advantage of it.

The Solution:

Bouncy Balls. No seriously. These bouncing cartoon balls may be one of the easiest solutions for this. This insanely simple and free website works best when students can see it operate, like on a projector or Smart Board.

It’s essentially a visualized noise meter. This is cool because sometimes our students are loud not because they don’t care about your lesson, but because they don’t understand just how loud they actually are.

Hit ‘Start Bouncing’ on the website and watch the magic happen. The louder the classroom sounds, the more the balls visually bounce and shake.

Teachers can change the sensitivity level and amount of balls shown to be less distracting. You can also change the theme to get numbers, emojis, bubbles, and even eyeballs (hello spooky season 🎃).

On top of all of this, you can even enable a ‘Noise Alert’ for it to give a beep or even a shush on your behalf should it get too loud.

How about YOUR classroom:

To make this as impactful as possible, first explain to students how it works; even have them test the limits of it at first to get it out of their system the first time.

A fair warning - especially for younger grades (where this tool works the best) it’s going to be its own distraction for the first few minutes of use; trust the process though.

Visual cues are a great way of regulating noise in a non-aggressive way. We find that this tool works best during group work, independent tasks, quizzes, and any time that students independently monitor their own noise.

Like any great tool, overuse can cause novelty to wear off, so we recommend switching up the theme often at the very least.

It’s 100% free and browser-run with no sign-ups required. It’s really hard not to keep this one bookmarked!

Brainy Bits

It’s not just distracting

The Study:

As teachers, we know that a noisy classroom is usually not the best environment to teach or learn. Beyond just being distracting, some students can academically suffer from it as well.

We’re not just talking about student chatter. Busy roads outside, humidifiers and air purification devices can add to a loud class. So much so that the average classroom sound level is 70db - the same as a vacuum cleaner!

In this week’s research dive, we travel to an experiment from 2020. 112 students aged 8-12 from different classrooms were observed and surveyed on:

• Perceived classroom loudness

• Hearing difficulties

• Attention capture

• Interference

• Annoyance level (from noise)

Their answers were compared and analyzed to see how individual students may respond to a noisy classroom.

The Results:

This experiment was not just about measuring which students are annoyed by noise. Instead, the authors wanted to see how students cope with it. 

Unsurprisingly, a majority of students found their classes too noisy throughout the day and were moderately annoyed when it got too loud.

Students who were diagnosed with hearing difficulties were much more distracted by any noise.

Students who already struggled with switching and refocusing were more annoyed by any extra noise. This makes sense, as their brains need more time to come back after any loud distraction, meaning they subconsciously understand that more noise = more time needed to complete their work.

Students who let their mind wander as a noise coping strategy were more distracted overall, but showed the same levels of annoyance.

How about YOUR classroom:

Some noise you can control - others you can't. For the noise that is in your control using techniques and tools (like Bouncing Balls above) can help students refocus quicker. 

For the noise that’s out of your control, such as classroom equipment and outside traffic, pay attention to the students that may suffer the most.

For example, for students who have trouble refocusing, a strong seating plan that seats them away from noisy sources (like windows) can help. Mind wandering students can also benefit from this.

This study also shows us to make ‘our noise’ (i.e. our lessons) more distinguishable from other sources. For example, if there is lots of outside noise, using a boring YouTube video is just going to float into the background. Aim for more hands-on activities during this time of the day instead.

A silent classroom is impossible. But we can make the best of the noise that we have!

Interested in growing with us? Want us to feature your tech tool, resource, or research? Hit reply to start a conversation.

Like what you’ve seen? Forward us to your friends and colleagues so y’all have something to talk about next week. 😎

Have an idea for some classroom tech, strategies, or research that you think is valuable for the community? Respond to this email and let us know.

References

Tech Talk:

Neave Interactive Limited (2024). Bouncing Balls. Retrieved from https://bouncyballs.org/

Brainy Bits:

Massonnié, J., Frasseto, P., Mareschal, D., & Kirkham, N. Z. (2022). Learning in Noisy Classrooms: Children’s Reports of Annoyance and Distraction from Noise are Associated with Individual Differences in Mind-Wandering and Switching skills. Environment and Behavior, 54(1), 58-88. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916520950277