All about Seating Charts in Alternative Education
A alted non-negotiable
I have always been a huge proponent of seating charts. As a quiet and observant educator, my goal was always to be the composer in the class as I let my students’ learning shine. All composers have seating charts to arrange what their goal is to produce for any symphony, and there are reasons why every instrument and musician is in a certain place. I first really got on the seating chart bandwagon about 16 years ago after attending a Quantum Learning training. This high-energy training uses brain research (new at the time) with general best practices in a classroom. If you are looking to transform your classroom, I highly recommend this training. With fidelity, it can change your class and school culture. Here is a dated clip about orchestrated classrooms from Quantum Learning, but it's still cool to hear about it.
It was after this training that I understood the importance of a seating chart. Much of my learning has only emphasized the need for a seating chart, like the research behind flexible seating and accelerated learning.
Seating charts should not be mini jail cells for students but be thought of more as creating a party seating chart. At a party with multiple tables, there is a purpose to how you should arrange the seating chart. Do you want people meeting others and discussing a certain topic? Do you want people silently watching a video clip or presenter? Do you want collaboration? In all those circumstances, we would design a seating chart based on that.
With that broader picture and understanding, we can create a seating chart for the various teachings that should happen in a class cycle. There may be many times you have more than one seating chart.
One last thing I would like to mention about seating charts is that they can ensure accommodations for students. Our students have different sensory and movement needs. We can use our seating charts to allow for these things. Perimeter students may be students who have movement needs. They may need to stand, or sway, or lunge side to side during lectures to focus. Students who need hearing support can be closer or further from the teacher or a voice amplifier. Vision support can be provided from various places in the room. There is so much to a seating chart, and to me, this was the prework I invested time in to create a masterpiece.
The Research
My favorite article on seating charts is Create a Culture, Not a Classroom: Why Seating Charts Matter for Student Success By Kevin Behan, August 17, 2019. There are so many things to consider with classroom seating. What does it look like? There is plenty of research on how classroom design affects learning. This infographic is helpful.
But, really our goal with seating charts is to create and build community. I support my learning community by assigning seats for optimal learning. I have rows for individual work and short lectures (all lectures should be short). I have students move desks to groups in different ways (fish bowls style, Socratic seminar style, gallery walk style, ground meditation style, debate style, group or 2, group of 4, group of 6 style, Making poster style). You name it I have a seating arrangement and chart for it. If I want to use shoulder partners or group discussions, I teach my students to move desks or transition from an individual desk setup to a group setup. I have also used removable floor tape to mark where desks go. Having students move their desks is a 2-for-1. You don’t have to do it, and it provides heavy-weight work for students which supports nervous system regulation. Throw in proper lifting, you start hitting those patient care CTE goals. It also provides a break in the learning, think a movement break for students to process information.
In addition to the research on general seating charts, there is hope for research that speaks to seating students. Once you have an activity purpose and a seating plan, you can think about who sits next to whom.
In her book, Kathleen Beachboard uses Dr. Charles Snyder and Dr. Shane Lopez’s work on Hope theory and applies this to students’ mental health. Dr. Snyder is the creator of Hope theory, which he primarily used in the medical field with patients in pain. Dr. Lopez primarily studied hope in schools and student persistence in school based on hope levels. Beachboard describes her time as a foster parent of a large family that experienced severe trauma, and she relentlessly searched for ways to support her kids. Hope was the answer.
What is hope?
Snyder categorizes hope as goals, pathways, and agency.
Goals – Approaching life in a goal-oriented way.
Pathways – Finding different ways to achieve your goals.
Agency – Believing that you can instigate change and achieve these goals.
Cathleen has created hopeful practices to increase students’ hope to support student wellness and persistence in school. Hope levels are a predictor of student academic achievement. What we know about hope and many other emotions is that they are contagious. Hope is a factor, like grit and a growth mindset, that has positive effects on humans. Students with high hope are more likely to graduate and pursue secondary education, they are more likely to have overall life satisfaction, they have higher feelings of self-worth, and they have a more positive attitude about life in general. Hope work is necessary in all alternative schools. My own doctoral research states the need for hope in continuation schools.
Cathleen and I found hope theory around the same time. We have a lot in common like we are both prior English teachers, we are both out-of-the-classroom intervention specialists supporting hope work, and she is just pure joy. But most of all, we agree that hope work is needed in all schools, but especially alternative schools. We have spoken many times and working together on a hope research study she is conducting.
Sorry for the tangent. Back to the seating assignments. Now that we know hope is contagious in her book, The School of Hope: The Journey from Trauma and Anxiety to Achievement, Happiness, and Resilience, the quickest and easiest way to start implementing hope work is by pairing up a high hope student and a low hope student. What we know about hope is that high hope transfers to low hope students, and for the most part, not the other way around. But a low-hope student with a low-hope student can make for lower hope in both.
I often think of this work as energy work. How can we move this energy? I call my seat charts masterpieces because I put so much thought into each one. And as an alternative school educator, I do this many times throughout the year.
Now, the logistics. My site uses Thrively for SEL activities, but Thrively also contracts with Cathleen for her Hope lessons, and they have the Hope scale on their platform. You can find the Hope Scale for students here (download the research, it is at the end), and the adult Hope scale below. After you have given the hope survey, you can see how each student rated themselves. We discuss the benefits of hope with students, and we do a “Notice and Wonder” activity with the educators on campus. What do you notice about the students who rate themselves low on pathways? What do you notice about students who rate themselves low on agency? The Thrively survey has a combined score of overall hope that can be suggested to insight into a student’s goal rating. What do we wonder about this? Author Alex Shevrin Venet, author of Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education, asks us to do this practice often as a way of being non-judgemental and practicing unconditional positive regard when working with students.
Once we do this practice, we can then go back to our seating charts and sit students accordingly. Doing a group activity. You are going to need to sprinkle in your high hope. When doing a challenging assignment, there are going to need to be some students that need to sit next to a high-hope kiddo. We often hear about pairing up students who excel in the curriculum with those who struggle. This can be really beneficial, but paring high-hope and low-hope, students can be beneficial in other ways as our high-hope students model agency and pathway thinking to reach their goals.
Quite frankly, now that this is written down, I didn’t realize how in-depth this practice actually is. It is an art and science, just like teaching.
But, most importantly, what we need to know about this is that there is extensive research to support this work. When a teacher pre-plans and utilizes a seating chart, students learn more. This is especially needed when students are in accelerated learning programs like continuation schools or credit recovery alternative schools. We do not have time to waste on classroom management. Every second counts and is important. We do this while still accommodating and providing support needs to all students.
Seating Charts
What they can look like.
*There are a reduced amount of seats due to the common practice of alternative education having smaller class sizes. The Model continuation school recommendation is 25 or less students in a class, the NAEA recommendation is 20-25. Here is the google doc template that has all of these arrangements for you to use in your class tomorrow.
