Mary Jo Loch

EdHD 5003
7-6-09
Affordances and Classroom Management

This paper is about affordances. I will define affordances, give examples, and show how

this concept can be useful in the classroom.

The idea of affordance is not complicated. In any interaction involving an agent and the

agent's environment, there are both properties of the environment and properties of the agent that

enable that interaction. “Affordances” refers to the qualities of the environment that enable the

interaction and the agent is said to have “abilities” that allow him or her to effectively interact with

the environment (Greeno 1994). For example, suppose a small child is in an environment where

there is a ride-on firetruck toy. The child has the ability to get his legs on either side of the firetruck

and is able to push it with his feet, and it is said that the firetruck affords this riding activity.

“Neither an affordance nor an ability is specifiable in the absence of specifying the other” (Greeno

1994). That is to say, to have an ability one needs an affordance in the environment and for an

environment to afford an activity, one needs the ability to effectively interact with the environment.

Take the same small child and give him a regulation size basketball and hoop. He does not have the

ability to dunk in that environment, so the ball and hoop do not afford dunking behavior for him.

Environments and agents should fit together in the classroom. As this fit is varied, behavior

changes and critical points and optimal points emerge. Critical points correspond to changes in

behavior at affordance boundaries (Warren 686). For example, suppose a child wants to climb stairs

but each stair is too high. Instead of walking up normally, he must change his behavior and climb

the stairs on all fours. The optimal point would be the perfect stair height for the child, where he

can most easily climb the stairs while expending the least amount of energy (Warren 686). This is a

good example of affordances in elementary schools. Stairs are not too high for the children. Chairs
and toilets are low to the ground, affording ease of sitting, and drinking fountains and paper towel

dispensers are easy to reach.

Another example of affordances in a classroom is windows or posters on the walls. These

can afford a break from lecture or homework; instead of paying attention or working the entire time,

a student can look at the posters in the room or out the window. However, posters in classrooms are

usually related to the content that is being worked on. So the posters also afford learning while the

student is taking a break from the task at hand (Rodgerson 2009).

Teachers can use the concept of affordances by changing the classroom environment in

order to encourage or limit certain behaviors. “A good example of coping with changing

affordances is navigating various body parts through apertures” (Ishak et al. 2008) An aperture is

simply a path or opening, such as a door, a crowd, or a classroom full of desks. People are good at

judging whether or not they can fit through openings. If a teacher would like students to approach

his or her desk often, it would be best if there were an easy path to the desk. It may not be very

inviting to have a path full of small squeezes from a student's desk to the teacher's desk.

Alternatively, if a teacher wants to limit movement in the classroom, making students squeeze

through mazes of desks might help. Although, this kind of desk configuration also affords nimble

students the option of simply climbing over the desks and it could also be considered a fire hazard.

Teachers can also change the environment so that it is less likely to afford getting distracted

or goofing off. An inattentive student could be seated near the front of the room. This makes it less

likely that he'll be looking around at everyone else while he should be listening to a lecture or doing

homework. Eliminating distractions that afford goofing off can also be useful. For example, in a

foreign language classroom, props are useful in learning vocabulary and making things more real

for students. However, leaving the box of props open where students can take things out whenever

they want affords goofing off. By removing this affordance, behavior can improve.
 Works Cited

Greeno, J.G., (1994). Gibson's Affordances. Psychological Review, 101(2), p.336-342.

6 June 2009.
<http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:4N48s0VZKYAJ:ecologylab.cse.tamu.edu/courses/physicalI
nterfaces/hostedMaterials/gibsonAffordances.pdf+gibson%27s+affordances&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk
&gl=us&client=firefox-a>

Ishak, S., Adolph, K. E., Lin G.C. (2008). Perceiving Affordances for Fitting through
Apertures. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 34(6),
p.1501-1514. 6 June 2009. <http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2660607>

Rodgerson, R. (2009). College of Education and Human Development:

Developmental and
Individual Differences in Educational Contexts. University of Minnesota. Class
lecture notes.

Warren, W. H. Jr. (1984). Perceiving Affordances: Visual Guidance of Stair

Climbing. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and
Performance, 10(5), p.683 -703.
6 June 2009.
<http://tc.liblink.umn.edu/sfx_local?sid=Entrez:PubMed&id=pmid:6238127>