An open classroom is a student-centered learning space design format which first became popular in North America in the late 1960s and 1970s, with a re-emergence in the early 21st century.
[2] Certain education professionals, including Professor Gerald Unks at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, strongly support this system particularly with young children.
Classrooms that are physically open are increasingly rare, as many schools that were built "without walls" have long since put up permanent partitions of varying heights.
The traditional classroom boxes with desks lined up in rows impede teachers' efforts to work in teams and have students 'in the flexible and varied groupings necessary' (Mark, J 2001:5).
[citation needed] In an ethnographic study, Murphy revisited a surviving open-space high school to examine teachers' enduring navigation of the reform.