Desks in rows? Pods? Tables? Do seating arrangements affect learning? Or are they just seats? 

When a seating arrangement fits students’ and teachers’ needs, it helps students work better in the classroom and challenges them with difficult objectives, academic studies have found. 

Fossil Ridge High School Language arts teacher Remy Garguilo said she believes a good seating chart can help students grow and be confident.

“It’s cool seeing a person go from not being a confident speaker, then, at the end of the year, they’re giving a killer speech all by themselves,” Garguilo said.

However, teachers and students can agree that seating arrangements don’t always work well.

“Rows make me feel it’s almost too serious,” senior Leah Ressler said. “I get stressed out.”

Garguilo agreed.

“I don’t like the row thing,” Garguilo said. “There’s no community, and it’s not comfortable.”

Flexible seating in a variety of formations that changes according to activity can help students expand their knowledge and observations within school and outside of it.

Adaptive spaces help students work “at their optimal level of challenge.” Flexible learning spaces also “invite exploration and discovery,” according to Teaching in Flexible Learning Spaces from the Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning.

Seating arrangements also help students form relationships with their classmates.

“I think it’s very important to have that peer connection,” Ressler said. “I think it’s really good to talk to different people in the class and get to know people.”

Seating arrangements can directly affect how students participate and connect with the people around them.

Fossil Math teacher Lauren Roeling said successful seating arrangements encourage students to be independent.

“It gives students an opportunity to be more resourceful and ask others instead of coming directly to me,” Roeling said. “I think that’s a benefit for their learning.”