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Distance Away From Front of Room/Visuals

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Distance Away From Front of Room/Visuals

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Theme 3 – Distance Away From Front of Room/Visuals

An aspect of creating a seating schematic for one’s classroom that must also be taken into account is/are the effect(s) of placing students in the back of the room.  According to Black, students who stand or sit more than 20 feet away from visual aids within the classroom will show a reduction in their learning by 50 percent (as cited in Haghighi & Jusan, 2011, p. 288).  As stated by Meeks et al. (2013), “Students farther away from the instructor tend to disengage without being detected” (p. 376).  This same sentiment was held by Anderson and Becker et al. when they found that as a student’s seat was further removed from the instructor’s, student performance decreased (as cited by Meeks et al., 2013, p. 376).  No matter what configuration one might choose to use for their classroom seating, there undoubtedly has to be students who are farther away from the teacher’s desk than others.  Knowing this going in, how does one make seating arrangements fair and equitable across the class?

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Theme 2 – Rows, Clusters, Horseshoes

As a teacher tries to decide how to arrange their classroom seating, there are multiple options that need be considered.  According to Haghighi and Jusan (2011), “Several literatures suggest that there are three different classroom seating arrangements – row, cluster, and horseshoe – that are influential to learning behavior of students within a classroom” (p. 288).  There is research showing the positive characteristics of each.  According to Wannarka and Ruhl, placing your students in rows has shown to double the time on task of students while reducing inappropriate behaviors (as cited in Szparagowski, 2014).  Similarly, horseshoe (semicircle) seating bears its own positive characteristics.  Research by Wannarka and Ruhl, Patterson et al., and Kaya & Burgess concluded that arranging your classroom seating in a semi-circle shape fostered a greater sense of classroom community, generated more student questions, and allowed students to interact more with each other (as cited in Szparagowski, 2014).  At the same time, clusters (group seating) can be beneficial as well.  Kregenow et al. argued that group seating helps to facilitate student interaction (as cited in Szparagowski, 2014).  As one can see, depending upon the intent of the teacher, student seating can be arranged in numerous ways.

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Theme 1 - Teacher versus Student Assigned Seating

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Theme 1 - Teacher versus Student Assigned Seating

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Theme 1 – Teacher vs. Student Assigned Seating

With education, as in every facet of life, there are certain variables that can be controlled, and ones that cannot be.  Classroom management is one of the variables that can be controlled, albeit it is one that can take come work on the teacher’s part.  Luckily, classroom management can be an easy task to tackle if some planning is involved.  According to Bicard et al. (2012), “Student seating is one of the easiest, most cost-effective classroom management tactics available to teachers” (p. 407).  While this may be true, there are multiple ways a teacher can choose to tackle this.  Does a teacher assign student seating?  Does a teacher use a program/method to generate a random seating chart?  Does a teacher allow the students to choose their own seating?  All three of the aforementioned options have validity to them.  Looking at a teacher who chooses to assign seats to their students, one could speculate that the teacher is, in a way, establishing dominance over his/her pupils.  Fulton argued that, “There is a very delicate balance between the teacher communicating a sense of territory (teacher in charge) and the students feeling comfortable and at home” (as quoted by Education World, n.d.).  There are, however, opponents of letting students choose to sit where they want to. Harry Wong, world renowned educational author, is one such opponent to this idea.  In “Students Who Face the Board Learn More”, Harry (n.d.) writes, “Although inviting students to sit in a place that makes them feel comfortable may sound inviting, it’s not the best move on your part.  There is a science to arranging desks and assigning seating.”  This particular sub theme of the student seating placement versus time on task debate is anything but cut and dry.

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Effects of Altering Student Seating Position on Student Learning

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Effects of Altering Student Seating Position on Student Learning

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The Impact of Seating Location and Seating Type on Student Performance

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The Impact of Seating Location and Seating Type on Student Performance

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Student Behavior on Seating Arrangements

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Student Behavior on Seating Arrangements

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How Student Seating Impacts On-Task Behavior

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How Student Seating Impacts On-Task Behavior

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Now might be a good time to take a long look at your classroom seating arrangement. Advice and opinions about classroom arrangements and seating assignments abound -- and Education World explores the possibilities. Included: Tips from Fred Jones on how to get the most out of classroom arrangements.
Arranging a classroom seems simple enough. Assign students to seats in nice neat rows that fill up a classroom. Right? Not so fast.

Classroom management experts and experienced educators say the decisions teachers make about whether students will be allowed to select their own seats and about the physical arrangement of the classroom can have an impact on classroom discipline and the effectiveness of instruction.

Classroom management expert Fred Jones, author of Tools for Teaching, says the typical classroom arrangement, with students' desks lined up in neat rows, makes it easy for custodians to do their jobs but tough for teachers to freely walk among their students' desks. Teachers should be able to get around the classroom quickly and frequently, says Jones.

"Don't approach this as a Jones's philosophy," Jones told Education World. "In fact, talk to any experienced teachers, and they think of this as a commonsense approach. Either you work the crowd or the crowd works you.

"As the teacher is moving about the room, he or she can check the students' work. There is a lot less fooling around a lot more time on task just by being among the kids and moving around the room. Natural teachers are doing it because it's obvious.

"As the teacher strolls around the room, what they keep doing is having the kids subconsciously saying, 'I have to keep working,'" Jones said. The bottom line is that a good classroom seating arrangement is the cheapest form of classroom management. "It's discipline for free," he said.

Keeping Desks Close

Considering that many classrooms are overcrowded, teachers need to think about how they can arrange students' desks so broad walkways run from the front to the back of the class and also from side to side. "The best room arrangement is a room with wide walkways," Jones said. However, one "correct" room arrangement doesn't really exist. A room arrangement will depend on the dimensions of the classroom.

One example of an effective room arrangement is one that groups students into three sections, as depicted in the photograph. Jones suggests pushing two desks together on each side of the room, angled at a slant toward the front of the room and push four desks together in the middle of the room. That arrangement creates two walkways to the back of the room and four walkways side to side between the rows.

Key to Classroom Management

"I agree that the physical arrangement to seating and the assignment (or lack thereof) to such is basic classroom management," said Marlynn Elliot Fulton, a visiting instructor and Teacher in Residence at the Neag School of Education, University of Connecticut.

"There is a very delicate balance between the teacher communicating a sense of territory (teacher in charge) and the students feeling comfortable and at home," Fulton told Education World. "Each of us has to find the balance that best suits us and the class we are teaching. Just think of the differences between the cozy reading corner with rocker and rug found in most kindergarten classrooms and the rigidly organized rows one sees in certain high school classrooms. Each has its place and purpose."

A high school history and social studies teacher for 27 years, Fulton preferred -- and still prefers in a college setting -- arranging students' desks in a semicircle, one desk deep. "Each student can see every other student (as can I) and each person's ideas are given value in discussions," she said.

Fulton states that there are advantages and disadvantages with about every type of seating arrangement. Teachers need to find one that works for them.

Debate about Assigned Seats

Many teachers recommend assigned seating to let students know who is the boss. "Unless the teacher takes responsibility for assigning students to seats that will facilitate discipline and instruction, students will always do just the opposite," Jones explains in his book. "When students as a group are given the freedom to sit wherever they want in a classroom, they will always choose the location for themselves that is to the teacher's greatest possible disadvantage."

Not everyone agrees with that notion. Phil Clinton, principal of the Anglo-American School of Moscow in Russia sees it differently. During a listserv debate last year about whether teachers should assign or not assign students to specific seats, Clinton objected to assigning students seats.

"All this talk about control in the classroom is very interesting but more than a bit disconcerting," he stated. "Is it really a question of controlling our students? Not that I'm for education in chaos, mind you, but is control really the aim here? What about the belief that those students are actually people and that none of us likes to be controlled? There is research and experience to show that students who have a voice in establishing the rules are much more likely to internalize and truly support/follow those rules."

Clinton said that although he wrote those comments a year ago, he still holds that same belief. "I live and work in a country where control was, indeed, the major issue. Now that the regime that had all that control is in disarray, no one knows quite how to act. There's something about control that goes counter to education in a democratic society."

Article by Diane Weaver Dunne
Education World®
Copyright © 2001 Education World

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Do Seating Arrangements and Assignments = Classroom Management?

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Now might be a good time to take a long look at your classroom seating arrangement. Advice and opinions about classroom arrangements and seating assignments abound -- and Education World explores the possibilities. Included: Tips from Fred Jones on how to get the most out of classroom arrangements.

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THE EFFECT OF SEATING ASSIGNMENTS ON STUDENT  ACHIEVEMENT IN THE BIOLOGY CLASSROOM

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THE EFFECT OF SEATING ASSIGNMENTS ON STUDENT  ACHIEVEMENT IN THE BIOLOGY CLASSROOM

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Action research project looking at seating arrangements

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Action research project looking at seating arrangements

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Student seating is one of the easiest, most cost-effective classroom management tactics available to teachers. As an antecedent intervention, seating arrangements may help to minimize or eliminate problem behavior without the need for consequence interventions (e.g., differential reinforcement or punishment). For example, Krantz and Risley (1977) showed that simply seating students away from others was nearly as effective in increasing on-task behavior as the systematic use of differential reinforcement and delivery of tangible rewards. Wheldall and Lam (1987) found that on-task behavior doubled when students were seated individually rather than in groups.

Although research on seating arrangements suggests that students behave more appropriately when they sit individually (for a review, see Wannarka & Ruhl, 2008), the role of student choice on seat selection has not been investigated. Offering students choices seems to be ethically responsible and may be an important component of a comprehensive classroom management system ( Cosden, Gannon, & Haring, 1995; Dunlap et al., 1994). However, allowing students to choose their seats might occasion more or less disruptive behavior, depending on where the students are seated. Completing schoolwork is a potentially high-effort response with potentially low-rate and poor-quality reinforcers, which often are delayed. Schoolwork also is in competition with disruptive behavior, which is a potentially low-effort response that can gain immediate access to a high-quality reinforcer (i.e., peer attention). Thus, it might not be in the best interest of the student or teacher to allow students to choose their own seats or to sit in close proximity to each other during independent seatwork. The purpose of this research was to examine classroom disruptive behavior during student- versus teacher-selected seating arrangements in the context of group and individual seating arrangements during independent seatwork.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

depicts the rates of disruptive behavior emitted across conditions. During group seating when students chose seats, disruptive behavior ranged from 0.82 to 1.82 per minute ( M  =  1.31 per minute, SD  =  0.37) during the first phase and 0.8 to 1.0 per minute ( M  =  0.92 per minute, SD  =  0.07) in the second. When the teacher chose student seats, disruptive behavior ranged from 0.33 to 0.67 per minute ( M  =  0.44 per minute, SD  =  0.13) in the first phase and 0.40 to 0.58 per minute ( M  =  0.49 per minute, SD  =  0.08) in the second. During individual seating arrangements when the teacher chose students' seats, disruptive behavior ranged from 0.1 to 0.29 per minute ( M  =  0.21 per minute, SD  =  0.07) in the first phase and 0 to 0.33 per minute ( M  =  0.12 per minute, SD  =  0.13) in the second. When the students chose their seats, disruptive behavior ranged from 0.44 to 1.1 per minute ( M  =  0.65 per minute, SD  =  0.23) in the first phase and 0.4 to 0.6 per minute ( M  =  0.44, SD  =  0.08) in the second.

Within and across group and individual seating conditions, disruptive behavior occurred less often when the teacher selected the students' seats. In the group seating arrangement, disruptive behavior occurred on average more than twice as often during student seat selection ( M  =  1.12 per minute) than during teacher seat selection ( M  =  0.47 per minute). In the individual seating arrangement, disruptive behavior occurred on average more than three times as often during student seat selection ( M  =  0.55 per minute) than during teacher seat selection ( M  =  0.17 per minute).

The probability that intervals with disruption were preceded by disruptive behavior or contained multiple disruptive behaviors was .47 during the group seating condition when students selected their own seats; it was .20 when the teacher selected the students' seats. When students were sitting in rows and students selected their own seats, the probability that disruptive behavior was preceded by disruptive behavior or contained multiple disruptive behaviors was .10; when the teacher selected the students' seats, it was .05. Anecdotally, it appeared that when one student in the group emitted a target behavior, other students in the group were likely to respond. Disruptive behavior during group seating tended to be clustered. When students were seated in rows, disruptive behavior tended to be isolated. That is, the disruptive behavior of one student did not usually evoke as much disruptive behavior from other students.

Our results are consistent with those of most studies on group versus individual seating arrangements and suggest that teachers may manage inappropriate behavior more effectively during independent seatwork by seating their students in rows. Further, our results suggest that providing students with choices for seating may not produce the positive outcomes demonstrated in other studies on task or reinforcer choice ( Cosden et al., 1995; Dunlap et al., 1994). In fact, providing choices in this study resulted in increases in disruptive behavior in both group and individual seating arrangements. However, if one considers the results from a matching law perspective and seating a student next to any individual student as the opportunities for reinforcement, then the two seat-selection procedures should produce different results. When students self-select seating, it is likely that they choose to sit next to other students who will interact socially. Thus, the self-selection arrangement may set the occasion for more dense reinforcement and higher quality reinforcement for disruptive behavior than appropriate behavior. Our results are consistent with previous research on the matching law in applied settings. For example, Borrero and Vollmer (2002) showed that the proportional rate of problem behavior relative to appropriate behavior approximately matched the proportional rate of reinforcement for problem behavior for three participants during functional analyses. Further, Borrero et al. (2007) demonstrated that vocal responses and eye contact roughly matched the rates of reinforcement for those behaviors during small-group discussions in a college class.

Despite the potential to explain our results in the context of the matching law, procedural refinements would be necessary to draw firm conclusions. Taking preintervention data on the frequency of reinforced talking or touching by students would help to establish true rates of reinforcement that could be plotted to investigate matching during subsequent student seating manipulations. Further, like many studies on choice, the consequence of the choice was confounded with choice making. It is not clear if similar results would have been obtained if the seat assignments during the teacher selection condition were yoked to those in the previous student selection condition.

We also caution that our sample may not be representative of a typical group of fifth graders. We conducted the study in a private school with a mostly homogeneous group of students who were relatively well behaved. Future research should test the generality of these findings with more diverse populations. Further, our results did not show meaningful differences in the amount or quality of completed work during the different seating conditions (these data are available from the corresponding author). However, the work we chose seemed relatively easy, in that most of the students completed all assignments with high accuracy during most of the sessions. Although research suggests that independent practice activities should be at a student's instructional level (90% accuracy) and not at frustration level (below 90% accuracy) ( Blevins, 2001), introducing more difficult schoolwork within the seating and choice arrangements may produce different results with regard to work completion and accuracy.

The limitations notwithstanding, our data support the use of teacher-assigned seating arrangements and provide further support for seating students in rows for independent seatwork. Such arrangements may prevent problem behaviors and allow teachers to spend more time teaching and facilitating learning.

REFERENCES

Blevins W. Building fluency: Lessons and strategies for reading success. New York: Scholastic Professional Books; 2001.

Borrero J.C, Crisolo S.S, Tu Q, Rieland W.A, Ross N.A, Francisco M.T, et al. An application of the matching law to social dynamics. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. 2007;40:589-601. [PMC free article]

Borrero J.C, Vollmer T.R. An application of the matching law to severe problem behavior. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. 2002;35:13-27. [PMC free article]

Cosden M, Gannon C, Haring T.G. Teacher-control versus student-control over choice of task and reinforcement for students with severe behavior problems. Journal of Behavioral Education. 1995;5:11-27.

Dunlap G, dePerczel M, Clarke S, Wilson D, Wright S, White R, et al. Choice making to promote adaptive behavior for students with emotional and behavioral challenges. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. 1994;27:505-518. [PMC free article]

Krantz P.J, Risley T.R. Behavioral ecology in the classroom. In: O'Leary D.K, O'Leary S.G, editors. Classroom management: The successful use of behavior modification (rev. ed., pp. 349-366) New York: Pergamon; 1977. (Eds.)

Wannarka R, Ruhl K. Seating arrangements that promote positive academic and behavioural outcomes: A review of empirical research. Support for Learning. 2008;23:89-93.

Wheldall K, Lam Y. Rows versus tables: II. The effects of two classroom seating arrangements on classroom disruption rate, on-task behaviour and teacher behaviour in three special school classes. Educational Psychology. 1987;7:303-312.

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DIFFERENTIAL EFFECTS OF SEATING ARRANGEMENTS ON DISRUPTIVE BEHAVIOR OF FIFTH GRADE STUDENTS DURING INDEPENDENT SEATWORK

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Student seating is one of the easiest, most cost-effective classroom management tactics available to teachers. As an antecedent intervention, seating arrangements may help to minimize or eliminate problem behavior without the need for consequence interventions (e.g., differential reinforcement or punishment).

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Study on how different seating arrangements affect student behavior

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Study on how different seating arrangements affect student behavior

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You Tube video discussing student seating arrangements

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You Tube video discussing student seating arrangements

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Classroom Management Strategies To Take Control Of Noisy Students

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Classroom Desk Arrangements for Best Behavior

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More info: http://classroomcaboodle.com/teacher-resource/student-desk-arrangement/ Classroom seating arrangements make a huge difference in student behavior. Here's how to maximize learning, which stems from creating a "pay attention" environment... and pulling your troublemakers closer. Betsy Weigle | Classroom Caboodle.