Ask Mackey Mitchell principal Marcus Adrian about how noise and a classroom’s physical surroundings affect the learning environment and you’ll learn a lot. He’s one of the nation’s experts on classroom acoustics and design.

He and his wife Angela, Coordinator of Saint Louis University’s Speech-Language Hearing Clinic, along with Jean Evans, Director of Clinical Education, have jointly published an article on how learning experiences can be improved by controlling the physical and sensory landscape of classrooms and school buildings. In Improving Classroom Environments, Marcus, Angela, and Jean make recommendations that could dramatically affect learning, behavior, and attention in the classroom. The result of a study conducted in partnership between Mackey Mitchell, SLU, and St. Louis Catholic Academy, the article provides six principles that can improve the physical and sensory landscape of virtually any learning environment.