Spring 2006

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Tips For Teachers

Simple Seating for Senior Students

Seating plans are often a teacher’s blueprint for classroom management. Arranging students in a pattern that reduces chatter and promotes concentration is an endless challenge. It takes time to plan, time to write out, and classroom time to arrange. What teachers need is a fast, re-usable, effective system for making up seating plans.

A system that I have found very effective needs only an overhead projector and transparencies, a marker, some clear MacTac or other clear shelf adhesive, and paper. Use the paper to write out as many numbers as you have desks, and attach a number to each desk using the MacTac. (If your desktops are small or your supply of MacTac large, cover the whole desk. This will make graffiti easier to remove). Then draw a square representing each desk on a piece of paper, label each square with the corresponding desk’s number, and photocopy it onto an overhead transparency. (You’ll need one transparency for each class you teach.) Fill in the names with overhead marker and put this sheet on the overhead projector at the beginning of class, as students are entering. They will then simply find their number and sit in the correct place from the beginning of class.

Since transparencies are easy to clean and re-use, you can update your seating plan anytime, using very little time. Your numbered tags on the desks stay the same. You never have to waste classroom time arranging students in new seats; they simply move every time they see a new overhead in place. It’s efficient, environmentally friendly, and aids in creating a positive, organized classroom environment.

Submitted by Angela Ranson