Acoustic environment challenges for the unique communication conditions in group learning classes in elementary school classrooms

Unlike the traditional ‘‘sage‐on‐the‐stage’’ configuration of many K–12 classrooms, the group learning or ‘‘guide‐on‐the‐side’’ configuration does not involve communication between a teacher in front of a seated class of 20 to 30 students. Instead, it can involve, most of the time, communication between the teacher and each of several small groups of students interacting, aurally, with each other. To maintain the desired 15 dB signal‐to‐noise ratio intended as the rationale for the ANSI standard, S12.60‐2002 on classroom acoustics, the ‘‘noise’’ heard by participants in one of the groups is likely to include the speech levels generated by the participants in the other groups as well as the background noise in the unoccupied classroom. Thus, specification of the speech level within (i.e. the ‘‘signal’’), and between (i.e. part of the ‘‘noise’’) the learning groups, must be considered. Data available to evaluate these speech levels are reviewed and possible models considered to account for the Lombard effec...