Teaching Thought #117

Teacherscribe's Teaching Thought #117

Give your class back to your students.  Way #3 – Consider flexible seating.

Done.  With mixed results.  For my juniors and seniors, it was great.  For my freshman, it was a nightmare.  They couldn’t handle the freedom of being flexible.  Not at all.

From the article - Students in my class chose their own seating chart, and are very comfortable with suggesting how and where they choose to sit. This can be inside or outside, beanbag, carpet, pillow, chair w/o desk and/or chair with desk, etc. In some cases, as in the picture below, we’ve chosen to eliminate the walls of our classroom in favor of a more free approach when it was necessary. The kids called it “University”, and spent much of their chosen time in the high school meeting rooms in our school.

I’m still not sure what’s in store for this year, but the amazing things that I am seeing on Twitter make me want to experiment more with how students best learn. I’m still not comfortable with giving up desks, as I appreciate their role in developing handwriting and good sitting posture, but who knows what these kids will decide for themselves?