Room Arrangements

I have always found it interesting to go into another teacher’s room and look at how they have it set up. I often wonder why another teacher has chosen the set up they did. I also found it interesting that there was so much information about how a room set up can affect student learning. For my own room arrangements, I found that I tried to keep certain students separate, certain students close to where I was most of the day, and some students specifically next to each to help them excel. I never really thought that there are actual diagrams and case studies to show what classroom arrangement work for different situations. It makes senses that there is formal research on this topic but it is weird to me at the same time that I always had these conversations, internally, when I rearranged my classroom.

I looked at several elementary classrooms. The first was a kindergarten classroom that had student desks set up in three “u” shaped tables. The teacher used this set up as opposed to tables because she thought students learned better having their own defined areas to sit at. I thought this was a brilliant idea because students are still able to work cooperatively together but have their own “area”.

I then looked at a second grade classroom. The desk arrangements were clustered into 5-6 desks creating a table or pod, which is an arrangement I often used at the beginning of year because I like to encourage cooperative learning. Finally, I looked at a fifth grade classroom. The teacher used student desks to create two large rectangle tables. The teacher chose this arrangement because students are able to work together and she only needs to walk past the front and back of the tables, never go down the rows, to work with students and check their work.

The three rooms I looked at all had some for of table clusters using student desks’ that allows for cooperative learning to take place. However, the kindergarten classroom and the second grade classroom did not have a lot of room in between the desks. This could prove to be problematic if there was a student who needed wheelchair access to all areas of the classroom not just his or her desk. To help accommodate a student in a wheelchair, these teachers may need to have bigger cluster groups so there is more area available through the classroom.

All three classrooms had an area where teachers provided direction instruction and meet with small groups. Kindergarten had a designated carpet area and the other two classrooms had a chalkboard area for direction instruction and a horseshoe table for small group. There were a couple computers in each classroom that students used during “center” time. Each classroom allowed for maximum teacher view from all points of the classroom. There was not anything to obstruct the view in which the teacher could not see the students. These open views would also allow for supervising staff to come in at anytime and have multiple viewpoints to observe what is happening in the classroom.

I never thought about how much a room arrangement could tell someone about the teacher’s instructional strategy. Table groups together means the teacher encourages cooperative learning and desks arranged so all students can view the front chalkboard could mean the teacher is performing a demonstration. I think room arrangements give supervisors a general idea of the teacher and teaching style.