The Best Classroom Seating Arrangements
Whether you are looking for a temporary or permanent seating arrangement in your classroom, you have a few options when deciding on a plan for your students. Depending on the age of your students and the subjects you are teaching, you may try alternate ways of seating to better suit each individual class.
Other People Are Reading
-
Benefits of Arranged Seating
-
Arranging seating in classrooms can help students' level of concentration. If you have arranged seating, students are less likely to chat and become distracted with friends, though organizing students into groups for seating is also an option. Arranged seating will also allow students to become more organized and structured, having to take responsibility over one specific area each day.
Different Seating Arrangements
-
Keep the traditional classroom layout by separating your students' desks into rows and columns. The teacher's desk is generally located at the front of the classroom in this learning environment. When holding classroom debates, break the classroom into two sections, pairing one section of desks on one side of the classroom and moving the remaining desks to the opposite wall, leaving an open space in the middle for discussion.
If you plan on having students work together on projects, you can attach desks together to form squares, rectangles or customized shapes, depending on the number of students you have assigned to each group. Another possible arrangement is having pairs of students group their desks together to help improve communication and teamwork skills.
-
Length of Seating Arrangements
-
As an educator, you can choose the length of each seating arrangement. If you have multiple classes to teach each day, creating a new seating arrangement frequently may be difficult and time-consuming. Keeping the same overall seating layout and switching students' seats individually allows students to mingle and to work with their peers in groups.
Resources
-
Teacher resources for seating charts and reviews are available in books and on websites for educators and teaching (see Resources). These websites also offer additional tips and ideas for seating arrangements and layouts.
-
References
Resources
- Photo Credit today image by alwayspp from Fotolia.com
