Running Head: FLEXIBLE SEATING ARRANGEMENTS

Artifacts 6:

Inquiry Seating Arrangements in Elementary Classroom:

How Flexible Seating Influence Students’ Learning

Yiran Liao

Michigan State University

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Introduction

Context

I’m a Chinese language and culture teacher in Rochester Community School district. This

is a public school district with thirteen elementary schools, four middle schools and four high

schools. Our district has been started Chinese program for about six years. From first graders to

high school students, they are all learning Chinese language and culture lesson every week. This

is my third year here in the district, and every year I teach in different schools according to

district schedule. Thus I have taught Chinese in six elementary schools, which gave me a good

opportunity to experience different school culture and classroom style. This year I teach in two

elementary schools with all grade levels from first to fifth grade.

Besides first grade, which has two thirty-minute Chinese classes every week, other grades

only have one forty-minute class a week. I don’t have my own classroom like other special

teachers, so I have to take my teaching materials with me and travel into different classrooms. In

this way, I have the chance to experience different classroom settings and work with classroom

teachers who have different teaching styles and classroom management strategies.

​Description of the situation

As I teach in different classrooms, I notice that every teacher has their own belief about

classroom seating. Some of them like students in assigned seats with desks and chairs while

some teachers prefer a flexible classroom seating arrangement in which students could sit on

yoga balls, bean-bags or sofas. In my previous schools over the last two years, I had about 30%

classrooms with flexible seating arrangements. But in the two schools I teach in this year, I only

have one classroom with flexible seating arrangement out of all my twenty-three classes. This is
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a fifth grade class in a flexible seating classroom. There are 28 students in this class. The

majority of them are White, four of them are Latinx and one African American student. Their

Chinese language proficiency are all novice low. I always find students in that classroom are

easily distracted by things that are not related to learning Chinese. Their concentration and focus

is shorter than other classes which have assigned seats. For example, I found the students who sit

in the flexible seating classroom always bouncing on the yoga ball, talking to their neighbors or

playing with some toys around them. Even though I reminded them and asked to look at me

while I was talking, they put their attention back to other things just in a few minutes. My major

concern is how to manage the students’ attention spans in a flexible seating classroom.

This situation drives my attention because I’m from China. In all the classrooms in my

elementary schools in China, the seating arrangements are the same. Students have to sit on their

chair behind the desk. Such traditional seating styles give the teacher a clear view to see and

support every student. Although I understand the flexible seating style has benefits that

traditional seating styles do not have, I still want to inquire about how flexible seating

arrangements influence students’ learning. Is it really good for students? How do I manage the

class in an effective way with flexible seats? I think this inquiry project will also help other

teachers to see the differences of classroom seating styles and find an appropriate and effective

way to improve their classroom management skills.

​Research Question

The main question I chose to do my research on is: How do flexible seating arrangements

influence students’ learning?

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Sub-questions

1. What are the benefits of a flexible seating classroom?

2. What are the disadvantages of flexible seating classrooms?

3. What strategies can teachers apply to better manage a classroom with flexible seats?
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Literature Review

How to arrange the classroom seats to better improve students’ engagement in learning

would be one of the most important questions that every teacher needs to think about before the

school year starts. The classroom seating styles change in history and have been compared and

researched extensively by the educators in different times. The major types of classroom

arrangements included rows of tablet-arm chairs, U-shaped, clusters, and rows of tables with

individual chairs. Most of the researchers investigated the beneficial of changing traditional

row-and-column arrangement into small group or semicircle arrangement, which can improve

students peer interaction and social communication. Some studies focus mainly on sensory or

physical features of the classroom environment, and others on social, cognitive and emotional

aspects, including the way power and autonomy are represented in the classroom rules, routines

and social processes. However, the flexible seating arrangement is quite a novel proposal in the

twenty-first century. There are relatively less research related to the influences of students

learning in the flexible seating arrangement classroom. Those research can be divided into three

major types:

· Flexible seating arrangement is physically beneficial for students.

· Flexible seating arrangement can increase collaborative and creative learning.

· The strategies of managing a flexible seating arrangement classroom.

Synthesis of Research

According to Steele (1973), all physical settings serve six basic functions: security and

shelter, social contact, symbolic identification, task instrumentality, pleasure, and growth. These
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functions provide a useful framework for thinking about the classroom environment in

elementary schools. This paper will mainly focus on the social contact function in traditional

row-and-column seating classroom and flexible seating classroom. Since students spend most of

their time in the classroom during the school day, the classroom environment plays an essential

role in creating educational experience for students. All the teachers have to think about how to

design classroom environment to students to not only maintain the basic functions but also

encourage students to learn better. As teachers’ teaching styles are different, they may prefer

different seating arrangements. Then different seating arrangements provide students with

different educational experiences that have an impact on students’ participation and academic

achievement (Betoret & Artiga, 2004).

A seating arrangement in rows compared to groups can instigate such positive academic

behaviors. Rows can especially support students’ on-task behavior during independent work. In

contrary, it has been shown that seating arrangements in small groups can facilitate interaction

between students due to proximity and close positions between peers, which is useful during

brainstorming and group assignments. Wannarka and Ruhl (2008) have thus shown that seating

arrangements can have consequences for students’ academic engagement and development.

However, the nature of the task and consequently the type of desired behavior dictates the most

effective type of seating arrangement.

Other researchers also provided empirical support for the idea that seating arrangements

influence students’ relationships and development (e.g., Blatchford et al. 2005), and that peers
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influence individual students at the classroom level and in small groups, when students are

placed together to solve a problem (Burke and Sass 2013).

In recognition of the evolving learning needs of twenty-first century school students,

changes to teaching practices and the incorporation of technology are increasingly accompanied

by modifications to the built classroom environment. Typically rows of desk and chairs are

replaced with a range of furniture that can be configured in various ways to facilitate teaching

and learning (Kariippanon 2017). Especially in the elementary classroom, teachers start to add

more furniture such as carpet, sofa, round table and stools to create a more comfy environment

for students. Different seating arrangements also appeared as U​-shaped, circle or half circle and

flexible seating arrangements.

According to Brown & Lippincott (2003), the definition of flexible seating arrangements

are ​easily configurable seating arrangements within classrooms and the ability to shift from

lecture mode to group mode during a session. They believe the flexible seating arrangements are

attributes desirable in modern classroom design.

More specifically, flexible seating can range from just allowing students to choose their

seats or move around the classroom more frequently to elaborately planned rooms with a wide

range of seating options that allow students to choose to work at different heights and in different

positions. Furniture options include couches, floor pillows, mats, bean bag chairs, yoga ball

seats, stools, low tables, standing work surfaces, and traditional chair and desk combinations.

Often a meeting place with room for everyone is needed. Generally, a flexible classroom allows

students to move furniture and gives them opportunities to work separately or in groups, though

groups are emphasized.

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As Salmen (2011, p. 13) stated, “...one size does not necessarily fit all...” and, as students

and instructors become more diverse physically and relationally, providing options and

alternatives within the classroom becomes essential (Scott, McGuire, & Shaw, 2003; Cornell,

2002). The flexible seating arrangement seems to give students more space and choice to gain

pleasure and growth because of the diversity functional furniture, and the freedom of making

choices.

According to research, flexible seating arrangements have many positive influences on

students learning. First of all, flexible seating arrangement is physically beneficial for students.

Sitting in the traditional fixed-type tables and chairs could affect the development of

musculoskeletal disorders, poor posture, back pain, neck pain, and other health-related concerns

(Thariq, Munasinghe, & Abeysekara, 2010; Milshtein, 2006).

To prevent these types of health problems, Breithecker (2006) suggests engaging in

active-dynamic sitting. He says frequent load shift supports the demand for a muscle controlled

sitting because - in contrast to passive sitting in a comfortable chair - the muscular endurance

improves. As the posture changes, there is always one group of muscle fibers at work to

maintain the posture while others can relax. It can be accomplished through the use of a chair

with a swivel feature and constructed to be flexible or open on all sides. Other physical

beneficial of flexible seating include burning more calories, using up excess energy, improving

metabolism, increased motivation and engagement, creating a better oxygen flow to the brain,

and improving core strength and overall posture (Thariq, Munasinghe, & Abeysekara, 2010;).

Secondly, flexible learning spaces can facilitate student-centered pedagogy and

self-regulation, collaboration, and student autonomy and engagement. Modified spaces are
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enjoyable, comfortable and inclusive and allowed greater interaction. Which means the

classroom with flexible seating arrangement is an interactive learning-centered place rather than

a lecturing-centered place.

There is a teacher named Brooke Markle, who writes about her reflections on shifting to a

flexible classroom mentioned one benefit of flexible seating that she didn’t anticipate was that

when she incorporated station work and students moved to new seats to work with a new group,

the students seemed more open to collaborating with an assortment of peers in a variety of

locations than had been the case with traditional seating (Brooke, M. ​Reflections on Shifting to a

Flexible Classroom​). This shows flexible seating is not just simply having a variety of different,

fun seats in the classroom, but it is more about utilizing student voice, creating buy-in,

heightening collaborative learning, and prioritizing students’ needs concerning the environment

in which they learn.

Kayla Delzer (2016) has the same thoughts about the beneficial of flexible seating

arrangement. She indicates that the classroom environments should be conducive to open

collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking. This simply cannot be done when

kids are sitting in rows of desks all day. The classroom environment should mirror what students

will encounter in their future careers, and collaboration, problem solving, and meaning making

are at the forefront of most job descriptions. Standard desks situated in rows do not foster open

communication and collaboration.

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Above research mentioned the flexible seating arrangements have positive influences on

students learning. The flexible seating arrangements can not only benefit students’ physically,

but also benefit students’ cooperation and communication.

However, there are debates that if flexible seating truly has such dramatic positive

influences. Some researchers argue that movable furniture may create learning disruptions to

students who prefer seats in the back or front of the classroom (Harvey & Kenyon, 2013).

According to Budge (2000), classroom spatial arrangements with well-defined areas can have a

positive influence on students’ social interaction and on-task behaviors. On the contrary,

classrooms with the “traditional” seating arrangements, comprising desks in a number of rows

facing the instructor, can increase students’ ability to focus on the lesson and concentrate on their

work (Budge, 2000; Hofkins, 1994).

Meanwhile, a blogger Lauren Bright, who is a first-grade teacher at Dishman-McGinnis

Elementary School in Bowling Green, KY, feels overwhelmed after she tried flexible seating

arrangement because she felt like she was constantly blowing up exercise ball chairs, and

replacing beans in the bean bag chairs. Due to the lack of the procedural practice, she felt she

needs to allow herself to change back to the classroom seating before flexible seating

arrangement( ​Education World. 2​ 018).

Bright’s experience indicates that this approach does more than change the classroom,

and teachers need to prepare for it and be sure it fits their teaching style. It really requires

students’ self-control ability and teachers’ effective classroom management. The classroom

management is an important task for teachers and part of this task is their responsibility for the
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physical design of the classroom. In order to assess whether teachers make effective seating

arrangements for students’ social and academic development more information is needed on their

practices and reasons behind specific choices (van den Berg et al.2012). It is not yet clear which

types of seating arrangements they prefer, what their considerations and goals are when

arranging the classroom, and to what extent the arrangements are in agreement with their needs

and beliefs.

In conclusion, as Howe (1984) remarks, each person's experiences of an environment are

unique and constantly subject to variation, largely because people learn from their own

experiences. Many factors connected with individual development and learning, including

perceptual sensitivity, personality and temperament, combine together to ensure that however

uniform an environment might appear to be, people's actual experiences differ very considerably.

The classroom with flexible seating arrangements may have beneficial that other

classroom arrangements don’t have, research are more likely showing teachers an “ideal”

flexible seating classroom, while not many researchers investigated the results of conducting the

flexible seating arrangement or record the influences that truly happened in a real classroom.

How do flexible seating arrangements influence students learning, and what kind of subjects,

teaching or learning styles suit flexible seating arrangements will be the main idea to investigate

in the rest of my research.

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Design and Method

Participants

In order to find out how flexible seating arrangement influence students’ learning, I want

to first compare the flexible seating arrangement with traditional seating arrangement

(row-and-column arrangement) in the four aspects: classroom function, teachers’ design ideas,

students’ preferences of their classroom environment and students’ learning performances.

I chose three classes to investigate: two of them are with flexible seating arrangement,

one is typical row-and-column traditional style classroom. The two flexible seating classrooms

are both in fifth grade, and the row-and-column classroom is in third grade. Below is the table

with the three classes information.

Table 1: Background information of four participated classes

Ms. T’s class Mr. S’s class Ms. P’s class

Seating Flexible Flexible Row-and-Column

Arrangement

Grade Level 5​th​ grade 5​th​ grade 3​rd​ grade

Students 28 31 32

Number
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Chinese Novice Low Novice Low Novice Low

Language

Proficiency

Setting

The data collection will occur in the four classes. I will conduct the investigation by

observing the classes, interviewing with teachers and taking survey with students in the four

classrooms. The biggest challenge for me is the time. Since I only meet each class forty minutes

every week, I have really limited time to collect data from students and also collaborate with

classroom teachers, seek their support, ask questions or share ideas. I think I need to be more

flexible to schedule interview time with teachers after school or in the morning before school

started. I will also try to design time-saving interview and survey questions to solve the time

issue.

Data Collection Tools

I will first observe the classroom, draw the classroom map (see Figure 1 as an example)

to better compare the environment details, I am also thinking about taking photos of the

classroom environment, but I will ask for the teachers’ permission first.
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Figure 1: Example of the Classroom Map

Then I will collect data of the classroom function by creating a checklist. As all physical

settings serve six basic functions: security and shelter, social contact, symbolic identification,

task instrumentality, pleasure, and growth (Steele, 1973), I think the six functions provide a

useful framework for thinking about the physical environment of the classroom. When I observe

the four classes, I will use the checklist (see Figure 2) to check the classroom functions.
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Figure 2: Checklist of the Classroom Setting Functions

Security and Shelter ❏ Elements of softness

​

❏ Space for freedom from interference

​

❏ Path to exit
​

Social Contact ❏ Students interaction with each other

​

❏ Students interaction with teacher

​

❏ Group / Partnership
​

Symbolic Identification ❏ Classroom theme

​

❏ Personalization
​

Task Instrumentality ❏ If the learning materials are accessible to

​

students?

❏ Clear pathway to avoid congestion and

​

distraction.

❏ Adequate space for students to move

​

❏ Clear view of presentations

​

❏ Enough personal space

​

Pleasure ❏ Colors, decorations, textures

​

❏ Students’ favorite place/ spot

​
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Growth ❏ Learning center

​

❏ Reflection place
​

❏ Literacy environment
​

After collecting the data of classroom environment, I will interview the four classroom

teachers with their thoughts of classroom seating design and their classroom management

strategies. The interview questions can be found in Figure 3 as below.

Figure 3: Interview Questions with Classroom Teachers

● Why you choose this classroom seating arrangement?

​

● Did you try other seating styles before?

​

● Do you think the seating arrangement is the most effective one to

benefit students’ learning?

● Do you want to try flexible seating arrangement? Why? (only for

teacher has the traditional seating arrangement class)

● How do you manage the class with your seating arrangement?

​
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The fourth tool I will use to collect data is the survey about students’ preferences of

flexible seating arrangement. The questions I will ask students in the survey can be seen in

Figure 4.

Figure 4: Students’ Preferences of Flexible Seating Survey

1.​ I like to be assigned a seat.

​

2.​ I like to choose my own seat.

​

3. I think where I sit could influence my learning.

4. I can hear teacher’s voice very well from my seat.

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5. I can concentrate on learning at my seat.

6. I can communicate better with my classmates at my seat.

Timeline

There are three major parts to conduct my investigation. The first part is to observe each

classroom, write my reflection journal after every lesson and draw the classroom map, check

their setting function. This part will be finished in two weeks (October 29​th​ –November 9​th​).

Then I will conduct an interview with teachers, record the interview results in the next

two weeks. Students’ survey will also be conducted in the meantime.

Roles and Ethical Issues

In order to balance my role of being a teacher and a researcher, I will set clear procedures

to follow through during the research time. I won’t use my teaching time to write research

journal or conducting student survey. If I have to conduct survey during my teaching time due to
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specific reason, I will first finish my teaching and then use just five minutes to let students do the

survey.

As for the ethical issues, I will let the students know in advance that I’m doing a research

about flexible seating arrangement and I won’t use any information regard to their real name to

protect their privacy. I don’t need to record students’ voice or video in my research but I want to

take pictures of the four classrooms, thus I will ask teachers permission and take those pictures

after school without students in the classroom.

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Data Analysis

Procedures

In order to find how flexible seating classroom influences students’ learning, I collected

data from three areas: classroom function, teacher’s design ideas, and students’ preference. There

are five types of data I collected. The first one is my observation journal, then classrooms maps

and function checklists, interview with classroom teachers and the last one is students’ survey

about their preferences of their classroom environment.

Initially, I intended to use a priori themes to look for the advantages and disadvantages of

choosing flexible seating in the classroom, to find how the flexible seating classroom style

beneficial or distracted students’ learning. However, when I started to look through the data I

collected, I found the two themes were too wide to be reflected and analyzed, as many different

aspects are influenced by flexible seating style, many data sources produced additional themes

during my data analyzing process. I believe it could be more specific to analysis the data by

using a combination of priori themes and emergent themes.

I planned to do member check with the classroom teachers but we could not find time

eventually. I also did not have chance to do the member check with my students due to we only

have Chinese class once a week and the time is very limited, which is a pity for this inquiry

research. I would like to find time to share what I learned with them in the future, even the

course is ending.
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Findings

During the three weeks of data collection and analysis, I observed students’ learning

behaviors in two classrooms with flexible seating style and one classroom with desk-chair

assigned seats in row-column style. I wrote observation journals to record the experience. I drew

classroom maps and did classroom function checklist to compare the differences. Then I

interviewed the three classroom teachers about their classroom design ideas.I finally did the

students survey to find out their preferences of seating style. Originally I planned to find how the

flexible seating influence students’ learning in the three themes: students’ interaction with each

other, students’ interaction with teacher, students’ learning behaviors. During the data analysis, I

also found out how teacher manage the flexible seating classroom could also influence students’

learning, I decided to add it as emergent theme. Since there are many data sources I collected,

during the data analysis process, I tried to color code different themes and highlight the data

source with corresponding color. Overall, how the data resources correspond to themes could be

found as below (see table 1).

Table 1: Triangulation of Themes from Data Sources

Data Source Theme #1: Theme #2: Theme # 3: Emergent Theme:

Interaction with Interaction with Learning Teacher’s classroom
each other teacher behaviors management

Classroom V V
map and
checklist
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Observation V V V V
journal

Interview V V
with teachers

Students’ V V
survey

Result #1: Flexible seating facilitates students’ interaction with each other.

The three classroom maps are as below. It could be easily found that in the two flexible seating

classroom (Ms. S and Ms. T), students sit on different kinds of seats in different places, they are

close to each other and always face their group members.

Picture 1: Ms. T’s flexible seating classroom

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Picture 2: Ms. S’s flexible seating classroom

Picture 3: Ms. P’s Row-Column seating classroom

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While in Ms. P’s classroom with desk-chair assigned seats in a row-column style,

students always face forward to look at the teacher. In my journal on November 9​th ​I wrote:

[​ Today I did Conversation Jigsaw activity in Ms. T’s flexible seating classroom. The

goal of the activity was to review self-introduction in Chinese. Students had to read the

information about a person’s name, age, gender, nationality and color of the clothes to figure out

who is the person. As they already sat in groups, I just gave each group member different

information to read and then share with their group. For example, student A read about the

person’s name, age and gender, student B read about nationality and student C read about the

clothing information. Every different group had a different person’s information, the group

members needed to communicate, share the information, help each other to find the picture of

the person on the Smart Board. I noticed students were really engaged in the activity, they were
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familiar with their group members, willing to communicate and help each other. All the eight

groups found out their person’s pictures at the end of activity.

Then I did the same activity in Ms. P’s row-column classroom. Since students sit

separately from each other, I spent about seven minutes to assign them into different groups.

During the activity, I observed two groups had conflict with their group members because

“She/he didn’t want to talk about it.” I thought this problem came from the lack of interaction

and communication among the students. The students’ relationship looked not as close as in the

first flexible seating class. In the first flexible seating class, I observed when the activity started,

students quickly decided everyone’s role in the activity, and they took turns to share their

findings. While in the row-and-column classroom, students felt unfamiliar with being in a group,

Those students who said “I don’t want to share” told me that they preferred to work on their own

instead of sharing and cooperating with their group members. At the end of activity, six groups

found out their person while two groups didn’t.​]

In students’ survey, the results showed in the three classes of “I can communicate better

with my classmates at my seat” are as below (see Table 2).

Table2: Students’ survey results (FS refers Flexible seating; R-C refers Row-column; numbers

show how many students chose the answer)

Statement I can communicate better with my classmates at my seat.

Ms. T (FS) Ms. S (FS) Ms. P (R-C)

25 participants 28 participants 28 participants

Strongly agree 6 (24%) 3 (10%) 0

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Agree 15 (60%) 20 (70%) 4 (14%)

Neutral 3 (12%) 3 (10%) 12 (43%)

Disagree 1 (4%) 2 (7%) 9 (32%)

Strongly disagree 0 0 3 (10%)

Those results can also be visualized as the pie charts below.

Figure1: Ms. T’s Flexible Seating Class: I can communicate better with my classmates at my

seat.
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Figure 2: Ms. S’s Flexible Seating Class: I can communicate better with my classmates at my

seat.

Figure 3: Ms. P’s Row and Column Class: I can communicate better with my classmates at my

seat.
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According to the data results above, about 84% students (include strongly agree and agree) in

Ms. T’s flexible seating class believe their seating help them to communicate better with their

classmates, and 80% students agree with the statement in Ms. S’s flexible seating class. Very less

students chose disagree. However, only 14% students in Ms. P row-and-column classroom agree

they can communicate better with their classmates at their seat, while 43% students stood for

neutral and 32% students disagree they can better communicate with their classmates at their

seat. Overall, the data results showed students in flexible seating classroom believe they have

better chances to communicate with each other at their spot.

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Result #2: Flexible seating reduces students’ interaction with teacher.

While flexible seating increases students’ interaction with each other, the interaction with

teacher seems to be reduced. When I stood next to the Smart Board and taught students to read

the words or sentences after me, or taught culture content, I noticed the students who sat in the

flexible seating classroom were talking or doing something else at that time. Here is another

journal on November 2​nd​:

[ Today I felt kind frustrated in Ms. T’s flexible seating classroom. Students sat

everywhere in the classroom. It was really hard for me to get their attention. They kept bouncing

on the yoga balls, couldn’t stop…During the conversation practice time, I even noticed the four

boys who sat in the back of the classroom were reading novels instead of learning Chinese.]

[ I felt much better in Ms. P’s row-column classroom. They always faced forward to look

at me, I can also see everyone clearly in the front of the classroom. Felt like they know better

about be a good listener, when I was talking, their eyes were all on me and listened very

carefully. They love to repeat the words and sentences. I did not need to speak very loud to

attract everyone’s attention. The whole class was quite and the students were concentrated]

Students’ survey showed the results as below (see Table3).

Table3: Students’ survey results

Statement I can hear teacher’s voice very well at my seat.

Ms. T (FS) Ms. S (FS) Ms. P (R-C)

25 participants 28 participants 28 participants
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Strongly agree 4 (16%) 12 (42%) 15 (53%)

Agree 15 (60%) 13 (46%) 9 (32%)

Neutral 0 0 2 (7%)

Disagree 6 (24%) 3 (11%) 2 (7%)

Strongly disagree 0 0 0

Those results can also be visualized as the pie charts below.

Figure4: Ms. T’s Flexible Seating Class: I can hear teacher’s voice very well at my seat.

Figure 5: Ms. S’s Flexible Seating Class: I can hear teacher’s voice very well at my seat.
FLEXIBLE SEATING ARRANGEMENTS 30

Figure 6: Ms. T’s Row and Column Class: I can hear teacher’s voice very well at my seat.
FLEXIBLE SEATING ARRANGEMENTS 31

According to the data results above, about 76% students (include strongly agree and agree) in

Ms. T’s flexible seating class chose they can hear teacher’s voice very well at their seat, while

24% disagree with that. In Ms. S’s flexible seating classroom, 88% students believe they could

hear teacher’s voice at their spot while 11% students disagree. Compared with that, in Ms. P’s

row-and-column classroom, 88% students agree with they can hear teacher’s voice and only 7%

students chose disagree. The results show that more students agree they can hear teacher’s voice

very well in the row-and-column classroom than the students in the flexible seating classroom.
FLEXIBLE SEATING ARRANGEMENTS 32

Result #3: Students learning behaviors vary in different flexible seating classrooms according

to the teachers’ classroom management skills.

In the two flexible seating classrooms, I always observed better behavior in Ms. S class

than in Ms. T’s class. As I mentioned before in my journal on November 2​nd​ in Ms. T’s class,

students’ behaviors like kept bouncing on the yoga balls or read novels didn’t happen in Ms. S’s

flexible seating classroom. Ms. S decorated her classroom as home, different places with

different themes as “living room”, “dining room”, “study room” and always played gentle

background music. They had clear classroom expectations in front of the class, they also signed a

flexible seating contract to make sure students understand and be responsible for choosing their

own seat to learn in a better way.

Besides the findings in my journal, the interview with teachers could also claim the

results. All the three teachers shared with me their classroom design ideas. The two teachers with

flexible seating classrooms both believe it is beneficial for student-centered learning, they want

to be a teacher as facilitator rather than a lecturer. When I asked how could they manage their

flexible seating classrooms, Ms. S said “I gave students clear expectations, we talked about how

they sat in different seats, we talked about the consequences and practiced many times in the first

several weeks of school. Once students know they have to be responsible for their own choice,

they are ready to control themselves on the flexible seats. We are trying to enhance the good

influences of flexible seating on learning and avoid the shortages together.” On the contrary,

Ms. T simply told me that “when students misbehave, I just told them to stop, they are supposed
FLEXIBLE SEATING ARRANGEMENTS 33

to listen.” Therefore, I think it is really important to establish a systemic classroom instructions

and expectations to enhance the positive influence that flexible seating on students’ learning.
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Conclusion & Discussion

Summary

My main research question is to find out how do flexible seating arrangements influence

students’ learning. After I collected data from three areas: classroom function, teacher’s design

ideas and students’ preference, I found out that flexible seating arrangements can enhance

students’ interaction and communication with their peers, better facilitate student-centered

learning. Instead of being the main instructor of the class, teacher is more like a promoter to

encourage students’ interests and curiosity of learning in the flexible seating arrangements

classroom. Which means the classroom with flexible seating arrangement is an interactively

learning-centered place rather than a lecturing-centered place.

In the meantime, the teacher’s effective classroom management skill is another factor to

maintain the flexible seating arrangements’ positive influence on students’ learning. As one of

my sub-question asked to find how do teachers manage a flexible seating classroom effectively,

during my research processes, I also learned some strategies of managing the classroom with

flexible seating arrangements from the teachers I interviewed and my teaching experience as

well. I will share in the Implication section about that.

Connections

According to Budge (2000), classroom spatial arrangements with well-defined areas can

have a positive influence on students’ social interaction and on-task behaviors. Flexible learning

spaces were reported to facilitate student-centered pedagogy and self-regulation, collaboration,

and student autonomy and engagement. My research pretty much found the same answer as the
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research. Students mostly prefer to choose the flexible spaces that are more enjoyable,

comfortable and inclusive and allowed greater interaction with their peers than assigned seats.

During my research I also found that it is essential to provide options and alternatives

during teaching. Just as students and instructors become more diverse physically and relationally,

providing options and alternatives within the classroom becomes essential (Scott, McGuire, &

Shaw, 2003; Cornell, 2002). The flexible seating classroom gives students more opportunity to

make their own choice, upgrade their learning thoughts, and improve.

Another connection I found is the same as the teacher Brooke mentioned in her

reflection, when she incorporated station work and students moved to new seats to work with a

new group, the students seemed more open to collaborating with an assortment of peers in a

variety of locations than had been the case with traditional seating (Brooke, M. ​Reflections on

Shifting to a Flexible Classroom)​ . I also noticed the students in flexible seating classrooms were

more like to communicate and work on group activities with their peers even in new groups.

Moreover, since I compared two flexible seating arrangement classrooms with one

traditional row-and-column assigned seating classroom, I also found the same situation as

Hofkins (1994) mentioned in his research that “classrooms with the ‘traditional’ seating

arrangements, comprising desks in a number of rows facing the instructor, can increase students’

ability to focus on the lesson, listen to the teacher and concentrate on their individual work.”

During my research processes in the three classrooms, I always observed students in the

traditional row-and-column assigned seats concentrated more on the lesson while students in the

flexible seating classroom were consistently reminded to look at me or listen carefully.

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Therefore, the classroom with flexible seating arrangements have positive influence on

student-centered learning and could increase students’ communication and relationship with each

other, while it might reduce teacher’s control of the classroom, in that case, teacher need to have

effective classroom management skills to better increase the positive influence of flexible seating

on students’ learning.

Implications

Based on what I found about flexible seating, I will adapt my teaching style to facilitate

and conduct more student-centered activities to increase their interaction with each other. I also

found that flexible seating is beneficial students to learn language, because the close and comfy

seating encourage them to talk and share more ideas with each other.

At the same time, I will improve my classroom management skills to keep students engaged

during my teaching. Since I’m not the classroom teacher, it could be hard for me to establish the

expectation and ground rules at the beginning of the school year and then consistently reinforce

the positive behaviors. But after I talked with the classroom teachers, I learned some strategies

like using Class Dojo as behavior system, moving students spot close to me if they chat too

much, use silent quiet down signal instead of loud call back. I also found some activities that are

suitable in the flexible seating classroom, like communication Jigsaw activity and learning center

rotations which I will use to facilitate students’ learning in my future class.

Moreover, while I’m doing my research, I’m always thinking about the culture

differences behind the seating style, because the original idea of conducting the research is from

the big difference between the classroom environment in China and here in the United States.
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I’m thinking about my findings could bring some fresh ideas to my country’s education area,

even though it could not have obvious influence right now, I think share the ideas with teachers

in China somehow could be helpful.

Further Study

As Kayla Delzer (2016) mentioned “the flexible seating classroom environment should

mirror what students will encounter in their future careers, and collaboration, problem solving,

and meaning making are at the forefront of most job descriptions.” My inquiry research found

that flexible seating arrangements has positive influence on students’ collaboration and

communication, but I could not find enough time and resources to inquire how classroom with

flexible seating arrangements influence students’ problem solving and critical thinking skills.

This will be the part I will inquiry more in the future.

I’m also planning to share my final report with my school district because I think it might

help other teachers get some ideas on how and why of choosing certain classroom seating style. I

remembered at the beginning of the school year, our district had a professional development day

with different sections and themes. Every teacher is welcoming to sign in a section to share

something with other teachers. I’m thinking about I could use this opportunity to share my

findings with the school district in the next year.

Reflections

This inquiry research really gives me a good opportunity to understand what flexible

seating arrangement style is, how does it influence students’ learning and how can I teach my
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lesson in a classroom with flexible seating arrangements. Since I grow up in China, I was taught

in a traditional education environment where teacher is the domain of the classroom, students

have to sit on the assigned seats in a row-and-column style and listen to the teacher all the time.

Then when I became the teacher, I pretty much have the teacher-centered teaching style

naturally.

I still remembered I was shocked in the first time I taught in the classroom with flexible

seating arrangements, I didn’t know how to get students’ attention and felt really frustrated to

lose control of my lesson. I felt like my teacher role was challenged during the whole time. I

started to question why teachers choose this seating style which totally looks like a mess for me.

That becomes my initial eager to inquiry this unfamiliar seating style as my research.

After conducting the research, I understand more about the flexible seating arrangements,

more importantly, I understand the first mess I met in the classroom was not about the seating

arrangements, but about how I as a teacher to manage the class. If I still keep the traditional

“lecturing” style in the flexible seating arrangements classroom, it will not suit students’ learning

style as they are getting use to open collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical

thinking. Instead of just be the information receivers, they prefer to be the seekers of questions.

I will also be more open-minded and adjust my teaching style consistently to better help

students’ learning. I will not stop the same processes as this inquiry project to identify questions

in the classroom, observe students’ learning, search resources, conduct adjustments of my

teaching methods and continue doing reflections. I wish I could become a more professional

teacher to benefit my students’ learning.

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