How to Create a Classroom Floor Plan

The arrangement of your classroom can have a large effect on your students and the lesson. Sometimes you'll want the students focused on you, while other times you'll want them to work together in groups or pairs. You need to be able to move around the room easily and monitor your class, and sometimes the students will have to walk around to get materials or talk to other students. Creating a classroom floor plan that's flexible and easy to change will help you and your students work well together, and will help your classroom management system.

Difficulty:

Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Desks

1. Ensure materials like art supplies, books or audiovisual equipment are accessible no matter how you arrange the desks. The doors should also be easy to get to, for safety reasons, in every classroom floor plan.

2. Keep desks away from heaters or air conditioners. If the classroom is crowded and there's no way to do this, rotate your classroom floor plan so the same students aren't always sitting next to a vent or radiator.

3. Use a horseshoe arrangement of desks for the most versatile classroom floor plan. Sometimes two horseshoe shapes with a smaller horseshoe inside a larger one will be necessary for larger classes. This arrangement allows students to collaborate easily in pairs or small groups without shifting desks around, and it gives the teacher a larger space to move around in, or to set up large audio and visual aids. In a larger classroom management system, the horseshoe tends to work best.

4. Seat students around a conference desk if the class is very small. This arrangement is particularly effective for encouraging asking questions and fostering discussion amongst students. It also gives students more space for materials to read from or work on projects. Colleges often use this type of classroom floor plan to promote a sense of equality between teachers and students.

5. Put desks together in groups to make small tables for projects, learning stations or collaborative activities. Students can work together easily and spread out their materials, and you can monitor groups comfortably. A good classroom management strategy for this set-up is to avoid a lot of teacher-centered activities, as some students will have to crane their necks around to see you.

6. Use the traditional rows-and-columns arrangement of students' desks for teacher-centered or blackboard-centered activities because all of the students will be facing the front of the classroom. Leave enough space between the columns so that you can pass easily to monitor individual students. This arrangement also works well for exams because you can see all of the students, and it discourages interaction between them.

References

• Learn NC: Sample Classroom Floor Plans
• The New Teacher's Handbook; Yvonne Bender; 2003