Meredith Dye

meredith.dye@mtsu.edu

Leah Lyons

CLA

Master Classroom

Peck Hall 306

N/A

N/A

Peck Hall 306 is a master classroom used by students in PWR, literature, linguistics, and creative writing. It is in dire need of renovation and would greatly benefit from updates to classroom technology to serve the needs of students and the types of courses offered. We propose replacing the current tables with modular tables on casters, which would facilitate adapting the room’s layout for collaborative activities common in writing courses. We also propose removing the damaged/dated carpet and repairing needed elements of the room. We seek to replace the room’s current thin clients with flatscreen monitors connected to more powerful computers. The thin clients no longer serve the needs of students well. Most students have personal devices they can use to do what the thin clients do (browse the internet, word process, etc.). What students need access to are a smaller number of more powerful machines that they can use to create and workshop digital projects using things like Adobe Creative Cloud that thin clients are not adept at running and that students themselves don’t have ready access to. A few desktop computers connected to flatscreen monitors, with adapters so students can also connect their own devices, would allow the sort of collaborative learning central to effective writing pedagogy. It would also allow for the removal of many of the tables currently holding the thin clients, which leave the room crowded and difficult to navigate and adjust.