Seating solutions - classroom seating arrangements

Now's the time to plan classroom seating arrangements that really work - for your students and for you. Whether you choose rows, small groups, a big circle, or something completely different, think about the way you teach and the way your students learn best before you start moving desks. And keep in mind that you can - and probably should - shift things around again at various points during the year. Here, four teachers share the how's and why's of their strategically planned setups.

FLEXIBLE & FLOWING

The free-flowing setup in Jason Pecor's first-grade classroom at Orchard School in South Burlington, Vermont, is designed to make flexible grouping easy. Jason team teaches with Susan King, and, at times, one or the other might have all 40 students in one room. Jason created a large space at the front of the room to accommodate everyone for the morning meeting. The rest of his room, like Susan's, is designed to support flexible grouping - tables placed around the perimeter of the meeting space for groups of four to five; smaller tables at either end for students to work quietly on their own or with a partner; and a horseshoe-shaped table off to the side that's perfect for direct instruction. Jason shelves teaching materials just behind this area, making it easy to get whatever he needs as he works with students. What's missing from this room? The teacher's desk. "Susan and I got rid of them," he says. "We were never there."

QUICK TIPS

* Use students' talkativeness as a strength. If you've got a small-group arrangement, place the most verbally expressive students in different groups. They'll make great leaders. Or consider grouping quiet children together - someone has to emerge!

* Try to give students some choice in their seating arrangements. For example, invite them to give you the names of six students they would like to sit with. This gives them some control while leaving you the flexibility you need to make the arrangements work.

* Children can be territorial about their belongings, so desks with storage areas pose problems when students regroup for various activities. As an alternative, have children keep their supplies in totes that they can take with them wherever they sit.

A CIRCLE & A SMILE

Donna Clovis teaches students with 22 different languages in her classroom at Riverside Elementary in Princeton, New Jersey. Because so much is dependent on visual learning, she starts the year in a circle - where a welcoming smile reaches every child. The same principle can apply for any classroom at the beginning of the year, when students may be feeling a little shy. Donna rearranges the room throughout the year to meet various instructional needs. During a geometry unit, she set up the desks to form a triangle. Students were momentarily puzzled, but then picked right up on the connection.

FOR THE KINESTHETICALLY INCLINED

Do you have students who repeatedly get up, wriggle around, or just look comfortable? Giving students the space they need to accommodate their learning modalities can make an enormous difference in the way they learn and behave. Here, Janette Kimery, a teacher at Granbury Intermediate School in Granbury, Texas, shares a fresh approach for arranging an effective learning environment.

Assessing Needs: I begin by asking students how they work best at home - at a desk, on the floor, on the bed? I use this information to plan an arrangement that will accommodate all of my students' needs.

Trial Run: I give my arrangement a trial run, marking out "private spaces" on the floor for students who want to try alternative seating.

A Productive Place: I remove enough desks to accommodate alternative seating - blankets, pillows, a tall table for two with stools, even a beanbag chair. Students assigned to these spaces use boxes, zipper bags, and other containers to store books and other supplies.

- Janette Kimery

CLASSROOM COMMUNITIES

There's more to a cooperative group arrangement than clustering desks together, says Jeri Lynn Rea, a teacher at Emily Dickinson Elementary in Bozeman, Montana. She organizes students' seats in communities at five, giving careful consideration to a setup that helps children take responsibility for their group space.

Each child has an individual storage space plus a shelf in a group cubby at one end of the table. (Jeri Lynn's husband built hers. You could also ask a carpentry-inclined parent to help you construct these sturdy organizers.) A group hand-in basket keeps paperwork tidy. To set her groups up for success, Jeri Lynn models exactly how to do what she asks - from putting supplies where they go to moving chairs in and out carefully so that students don't knock into classmates behind them.

At the start of the year, Jeri Lynn assigns students to groups randomly, a method that surprisingly has always worked out. As the year progresses, she rearranges groups several times according to instructional need, making it easy for her to give mini-lessons to students with similar needs.

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