Re: Mei's Observation & Diary

(February 14, 2005) Mei said,
“I changed their seating arrangement to three straight lines today...I noticed that they had less space to practice the things I taught in class because of the space limitation...The teaching activities were limited as well because of the space. Some of the students didn’t show their happy faces to me because they only could see the back of their classmates’ head and just like in the elementary school seating…For the younger kids, I think they need more space to move in order to practice the things they are going to learn in class.”


My feedback:

For most of the classes I have taught, I prefer the students sit in a U shape for it’s much easier to conduct group activities this way. However, I have also been to classrooms where there are only long tables and the students have to sit in rows. Students always seem more relaxed (sometimes too relaxed) with the U shape arrangement, yet there are also times when the students complain that they can’t see the whiteboard clearly (especially those students who sit on the two sides). I feel that the traditional seat arrangement is sometimes the better choice for older students. It gives them a stronger sense of “we are in a ‘class’ now so we’d not be fooling around.”