A seating arrangement that reflects the needs of your students, your style of teaching, and the type of content being explored can have profound effects on student behavior and academic success. A “good” arrangement improves attention, enhances equity of learning, and promotes the learning of critical “soft” skills such as constructive debate. A “bad” arrangement can lead to a chaotic classroom that would make even the most seasoned teacher feel stressed.

While there is no perfect arrangement, this white paper guides you in selecting and using a configuration based on the needs of your students and your unique teaching style.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Understanding the research behind how to structure your classroom

Discover 6 unique seating configurations

Evaluate each arrangement based on its pros and cons to best meet your

students’ unique needs and teaching style

UNDERSTANDING THE RESEARCH

TRADITIONAL ROWS

U-SHAPE

SMALL GROUPS

“THE RUNWAY”

STADIUM / COLLEGIATE

CENTERS

SEATING VISUALS

REFERENCES

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Classroom SeatingArrangements that Work

THE LEADER IN STEM EDUCATION

OPTIMIZING HOW YOUR STUDENTS LEARN

UNDERSTANDING THE RESEARCH

Despite the 21st-century push for cluster/group-style seating arrangements, the data suggests that rows are significantly more powerful at promoting on-task behavior and higher quality of work when individual work is the goal. “The studies that concerned individual tasks were unequivocal in their support for an arrangement in rows to increase on-task behavior and/or decrease off-task behavior when students were expected to work on their own” (Wannarka and Ruhl, 2008).

When group work, collaboration, and peer-to-peer discussion is the goal, grouped seating is king. The work of Rosenfield, Lambert, and Black (1985) shows the exact opposite from Wannarka and Ruhl’s findings: rows fail at promoting brainstorming and collaborative tasks; based on their research, rows were, in fact, the least conducive to on-task behavior.

Selecting the right seating arrangement depends on many factors, including maturity of students, the need for students to work independently or in small groups, and the comfort/personality of the teacher, to name a few. Nevertheless, data shows that the nature of what is being taught is the most important factor in determining the appropriate seating arrangements (Classroom Seating Arrangements, 2019). We encourage you to

experiment with these and rearrange them as what you are doing with your students changes over the year or even within the lesson cycle. In this guide we’ll explore a series of seating arrangements based on the task at hand to maximize the learning experience in the classroom.

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TRADITIONAL ROWS

We may associate rows of desks with the traditional one-room schoolhouse, but that doesn’t mean they’re a thing of the past. Rows are ideal for independent work, testing, and direct instruction. Although students may be prone to distraction from neighbors, the row configuration is among the easiest for monitoring on-task behavior.

Pros: easy to manage the classroom, easy to monitor on-task behavior, allows students to show what they know independently for assessment Cons: very teacher centric, often looks inherently old-fashioned in the eyes of school leadership, isolates students who lack prerequisite skills or confidence

U-SHAPE

The U-shape promotes classwide discussion and debate, or a teacher-led demonstration to drive inquiry of an initial anchoring/investigative phenomenon. Consider using these with a claim-evidence-reasoning assessment to incite scientific discourse. U-shapes also promote equity by bringing all students together “as one.” A U-shape can fall short, though, when it comes to getting everyone to participate—teachers should be diligent about encouraging all voices.

Pros: encourages sharing and discussion, promotes the development of aural and linguistic skills, develops a sense of community and togetherness Cons: students can “hide” among their peers, it’s harder to help students individually, can be intimidating for ELLs

It may surprise many of us to learn that where a student sits (e.g., the back row in a “stadium / collegiate” seating arrangement) does not have a strong influence on academic performance. In fact, in college-level studies, researchers “found no evidence that grades or student attitudes were affected by seat location. Nor was there a suggestion of any such relationship” (Kallnowksi and Taper, 2006). Granted, K-12 students may be affected differently by seating location, as they have not learned the study and attention skills of their older peers. Nevertheless, the implication here is that it’s more important to think about HOW a classroom is arranged than WHERE a student sits in it. By arranging classrooms in a way that is conducive to the task, learning, or skill at hand, teachers can better prepare students to absorb that new content successfully.

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SMALL GROUPS

Small groups often represent the quintessential 21st-century classroom. Arranging students in groups of 3-4 (this is ideal to promote the sharing of not only resources but also ideas), small groups excel at hands-on exploration and group problem-solving. This arrangement is a good choice when you want to promote team competition or organize students based on interest/aptitude so they can progress at their own rates and you can help them each in the way they need you most.

Pros: supports flexible grouping based on interest/skill level, allows teachers to help each group where they are, enables students to progress independently Cons: not every student wants to work in a team, can promote group “free riders” who let teammates learn/do for them, requires more resources to serve all groups

“THE RUNWAY”

If we were to take away the bottom of the U-shape model, we’d end up with “the runway.” Use this model to create two oppos-ing teams/groups; it can be a great way to promote classwide competition and quiz your students on recall-level information. Be careful, though, that you create an equitable environment when using this seating arrange-ment, as it can give students the sense that one group is “better” than the other.

Pros: creates a competitive spirit, great to quickly identify misconceptions and check for under- standing, allows students to learn from one another Cons: can be intimidating for ELLs, can create class division, hard to help students individually

Postsecondary workforce success relies heavily on “soft skills”—collaboration, discourse, and listening, for example. While these qualities are captured in school success scores, they are vital to the success of our students in the working world and their personal lives as well. It is thus important to consider how the seating arrangement you choose either promotes or detracts from these skills in the learning experience at hand. Consider how an independent task of learning the steps of photosynthesis through reading could be enhanced with group readings and discussion; in a practical sense, this might mean changing a row arrangement for a small group arrangement. In some instances this could mean students learn at less depth because of distractions, but they may also gain insights from peers that they would not have alone.

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STADIUM / COLLEGIATE

This model is a hybrid of rows and small groups. While it may be most appropriate for direct instruction, it allows students the opportunity to collaborate during a lecture or demonstration in order to digest new content. This model is often used when teaching complex ideas where you want students to not only learn from you but from each other as they interpret what you share with them.

Pros: allows both teacher-centric and student-centric learning, helps students digest complex new content, mirrors college learning to prepare students for the future Cons: may be distracting for some learners, requires students to be both good listeners and good team players, consumes a lot of space because the table is not fully used

CENTERS

Centers are the most flexible of seating configurations. With three distinct sections—an independent work area (rows), group work area, and teacher pull-out area—centers allow students to move between learning modalities. This enables the teacher to effectively break up the classroom into three units. Of course, strong classroom management skills are essential. However, once students are trained, the learning opportunities here are superb at promoting student-centric enrichment, building independent practice, and helping struggling learners.

Pros: allows both student-centric and teacher-centric learning, helps each learner get what they need in a variety of ways, promotes engagement and movement by rotating places frequently Cons: requires strong and varied classroom management skills, requires significant lesson preparation, requires students to understand their responsibilities at each location

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SEATING VISUALIZATIONS

Classroom size is a contentious subject because it is wrapped up with not only issues of academic performance but also taxpayer money. Research has shown, on both sides, that large class sizes and small class sizes can have negative/positive effects on grades. Making a precise determination of appropriate size is tough. Combing through the research, there is some certainty that “very large class-size reductions, on the order of magnitude of 7-10 fewer students per class, can have significant long-term effects on student achievement and other meaningful outcomes. These effects seem to be largest when introduced in the earliest grades, and for students from less advantaged family backgrounds” (Chingos and Whitehurst, 2011).

While some configurations (e.g., Traditional Rows and Small Groups) lend themselves to larger class sizes due to spacing needs, do not let that dissuade you from creatively using your space to make other configurations work for you.

Traditional Rows U-shape Small Groups

“The Runway”

Student Seat Front of Classroom / Screen Entrance

Stadium / Collegiate Centers

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Referenceshttp://www.corelearn.com/files/Archer/Seating_Arrangements.pdfhttps://brainspring.com/ortongillinghamweekly/how-many-students-should-be-in-a-small-group/https://www.brookings.edu/research/class-size-what-research-says-and-what-it-means-for-state-policy/https://www.nsta.org/publications/news/story.aspx?id=53084https://poorvucenter.yale.edu/ClassroomSeatingArrangements

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