Assigned Seats
I don't really remember the last time I had assigned seats in school. They were definitely assigned in elementary school--always, and perhaps some in junior and high school--wait, yes, actually. I think there was a switching of or to assigned seats after the first semester of English senior year because I remember some sort of adjusting period, and I didn't sit by my friends. Okay, so there was also that time in Trig that I had my seat reassigned, and only mine--not the whole class--to keep me from talking too much to my friends. But that's a different story.
That all aside, I doubt I had any college teachers who assigned seats. I don't even remember if they assigned us to work with specific people. No, I take that back. In freshman English, the group paper was an assigned team. Otherwise, probably nothing more than discussion groups for the day, very temporary. Any group projects I did, that I remember, were all groups I chose or that the teacher helped us to get together because of similar interests.
And so, throughout my years of teaching college English, that's pretty much how I operated. I didn't assign seats. I occasionally allowed self-chosen group projects, and I often assigned temporary discussion groups, though many more times, I let my students choose those partners, too. And if anyone was talking too much to their friends--well, I mostly just tried to get them to shut up by asking them what they were talking about publicly, by stopping class and looking at them, and, after the worst semester of chatty Cathies, by implementing daily professionalism grades.
Now, though, as a college French teacher, I'm changing my direction. I don't have much of an intro-level foreign language experience from college since I started freshman year in French 202--the fourth semester beginner's class, and I don't remember even doing any small group discussions. I think most of our discussions were entire-class based and we all sat in a circle, too, if I remember right. Assigning seats in college intro languages courses might be normal. I know they do it in the Japanese section at UofA from talking to some fellow GATs last semester in my practicum course.
In any case, why have I changed my ways now? In our curriculum, we have the students talk to other students in one-on-one situations quite a bit, as I mentioned in a previous blog post, and as I'm sure you can imagine if you've taught any intro language course. So when I started noticing that some of my students who were struggling a bit more were always paired with others in their same boat. I also had a few students who continued to sit way in the back, not near enough anyone to have an easy partner so when they did pair off, I always had to manually assign them, and then hope they actually did it. Too often, they seemed to keep their conversations so short that I never got to them in time--if they were even doing them. Of course, I tried initiating the conversation or getting them to repeat it for me, but it was like pulling teeth. I knew I needed to change something.
My mistake last semester, though, was in giving the students the impression that I was undecided after the first chapter--when I'd decided to make the change, that being a natural break. The truth is I was determined to make the change, I just hadn't figured out how to change it before I was in class and had to. Plus, I was nervous about the students' reaction. So, after hemming a bit, I decided to let them choose, just as long as it wasn't the same seat they had been sitting in. It worked out, generally speaking, but I say mistake because there was a lot of mumbling about it. I'll explain more in a minute.
After the second test, I just said they could sit anywhere but the last place, so they could go back to the first place if they wanted. Some did, but many actually didn't--surprising considering the mumbling. But they still mumbled about this changing time. So after the third chapter, then, I didn't make them switch, just to allow them some break and myself, perhaps, too. Some students actually thanked me with sighs of relief. After the fourth test, though, I did it again, but more structured. I had them arrange themselves according to the months of their birthdays. I also had everyone sit as far forward as possible so no one was in the back. I think that was the best. I should have done it earlier.
So why this change? A few things. In addition to my noticing again during the third chapter that some of the bigger strugglers were still sitting next to each other--even though they were different groups from the beginning--the other reason was that I wanted to get students away from sitting by their friends. Part of the reason I even thought of doing it in the first place was that I'd read a few different books in which the authors talked about studies on group work that showed that working with people you don't know actually improves your success. Even in the studies, they found that people didn't really like it, and there was a lot of thinking that they weren't doing as well, but compared to self-selected groups, assigned groups of heterogeneous experiences did better. I had to test it for myself, well, kind of. I'm not taking any statistics on the success rate or anything, but I didn't figure it would hurt any in any case.
Did it improve their scores? Well, I really don't know. But surprisingly, not a single person mentioned it in the end-of-semester evaluations, so I think they must have recognized some value in it. I figure even if it didn't change their scores, some got to make some new friends. I'm fairly certain there were even some students were grateful for the change because they wanted an excuse to sit by different people, though they would never say so to me or in earshot of the mumbling students--if ever. People are creatures of habit, as we say, but sometimes you get stuck in habits you don't like so you've got to shake things up, but social pressures make that tricky. Classroom seating situations are a petri dish for psycho-social-culture analyses--which reminds me of another story from my past, but I guess I might not share that here. Too many digressions.
And now we come to this semester, fresh start. Did I learn my lesson? Yes. I did the structured change earlier and I didn't hem. The first chapter, they sat wherever they wanted, which was all over the rooms (two classes now). But after the first test, which was this week, I made them switch. They didn't know the months of the year, yet, though, so I struggled for a bit on how to arrange them. Finally it came to me. They'd learned two-digit numbers, so I had them arrange themselves in a line at the front of the class according to the last two digits of their phone numbers. Brilliant, n'est-ce pas? Well, they actually had only learned to 69, so those with higher numbers didn't know what to do, and I was hearing a bit too much English, so I finally just said say both numbers as single digits. "Oh!" I sill heard too much English in spite of my constant reminders. It was still kind of fun, though. Good test for them--actually a language exercise I found on a website somewhere a couple years ago, but with something different, like letters of their name or something.
In any case...So, it's only been a few days, so how effective it is, I'm not sure yet, but I think it will help some students. I did see one girl who might have been near tears, which made me feel bad, but she might have been having a bad day for other reasons and that was just another straw. Otherwise, though they did act slightly unpleasantly surprised and still tried to sit in the back, it was not nearly as much as last semester, and most of it was in the first class--perhaps because they saw my wheels turning while I still tried to think about how to reorganize them--my showing a little less confidence, or perhaps because the classroom is so much bigger and social cultural norms make certain students feel awkward not sitting in the very back.
But I was confident about doing the change, and I think that was a difference from last semester that led to less grumbly compliance. My hypothesis, then, is that students are less likely to trust you as a teacher when you're not certain about something, but there's also a certain level of awkwardness in the hierarchical structure. For some reason, many students are reluctant to share their opinions until after you've made a decision. They want you to decide because you're in charge, but they'll let you know if they don't like what you decided. On the other hand, if you're decisive and there was never an option for them to share an opinion, they take it in stride--until the end of semester evaluations. :) (Which was also why I was surprised and glad no one said anything about this.)
So now to you: Is that how it's been for you as a student? as a teacher? What other thoughts do you have about seating arrangements? Teacher-student decision making?
That all aside, I doubt I had any college teachers who assigned seats. I don't even remember if they assigned us to work with specific people. No, I take that back. In freshman English, the group paper was an assigned team. Otherwise, probably nothing more than discussion groups for the day, very temporary. Any group projects I did, that I remember, were all groups I chose or that the teacher helped us to get together because of similar interests.
And so, throughout my years of teaching college English, that's pretty much how I operated. I didn't assign seats. I occasionally allowed self-chosen group projects, and I often assigned temporary discussion groups, though many more times, I let my students choose those partners, too. And if anyone was talking too much to their friends--well, I mostly just tried to get them to shut up by asking them what they were talking about publicly, by stopping class and looking at them, and, after the worst semester of chatty Cathies, by implementing daily professionalism grades.
Now, though, as a college French teacher, I'm changing my direction. I don't have much of an intro-level foreign language experience from college since I started freshman year in French 202--the fourth semester beginner's class, and I don't remember even doing any small group discussions. I think most of our discussions were entire-class based and we all sat in a circle, too, if I remember right. Assigning seats in college intro languages courses might be normal. I know they do it in the Japanese section at UofA from talking to some fellow GATs last semester in my practicum course.
In any case, why have I changed my ways now? In our curriculum, we have the students talk to other students in one-on-one situations quite a bit, as I mentioned in a previous blog post, and as I'm sure you can imagine if you've taught any intro language course. So when I started noticing that some of my students who were struggling a bit more were always paired with others in their same boat. I also had a few students who continued to sit way in the back, not near enough anyone to have an easy partner so when they did pair off, I always had to manually assign them, and then hope they actually did it. Too often, they seemed to keep their conversations so short that I never got to them in time--if they were even doing them. Of course, I tried initiating the conversation or getting them to repeat it for me, but it was like pulling teeth. I knew I needed to change something.
My mistake last semester, though, was in giving the students the impression that I was undecided after the first chapter--when I'd decided to make the change, that being a natural break. The truth is I was determined to make the change, I just hadn't figured out how to change it before I was in class and had to. Plus, I was nervous about the students' reaction. So, after hemming a bit, I decided to let them choose, just as long as it wasn't the same seat they had been sitting in. It worked out, generally speaking, but I say mistake because there was a lot of mumbling about it. I'll explain more in a minute.
After the second test, I just said they could sit anywhere but the last place, so they could go back to the first place if they wanted. Some did, but many actually didn't--surprising considering the mumbling. But they still mumbled about this changing time. So after the third chapter, then, I didn't make them switch, just to allow them some break and myself, perhaps, too. Some students actually thanked me with sighs of relief. After the fourth test, though, I did it again, but more structured. I had them arrange themselves according to the months of their birthdays. I also had everyone sit as far forward as possible so no one was in the back. I think that was the best. I should have done it earlier.
So why this change? A few things. In addition to my noticing again during the third chapter that some of the bigger strugglers were still sitting next to each other--even though they were different groups from the beginning--the other reason was that I wanted to get students away from sitting by their friends. Part of the reason I even thought of doing it in the first place was that I'd read a few different books in which the authors talked about studies on group work that showed that working with people you don't know actually improves your success. Even in the studies, they found that people didn't really like it, and there was a lot of thinking that they weren't doing as well, but compared to self-selected groups, assigned groups of heterogeneous experiences did better. I had to test it for myself, well, kind of. I'm not taking any statistics on the success rate or anything, but I didn't figure it would hurt any in any case.
Did it improve their scores? Well, I really don't know. But surprisingly, not a single person mentioned it in the end-of-semester evaluations, so I think they must have recognized some value in it. I figure even if it didn't change their scores, some got to make some new friends. I'm fairly certain there were even some students were grateful for the change because they wanted an excuse to sit by different people, though they would never say so to me or in earshot of the mumbling students--if ever. People are creatures of habit, as we say, but sometimes you get stuck in habits you don't like so you've got to shake things up, but social pressures make that tricky. Classroom seating situations are a petri dish for psycho-social-culture analyses--which reminds me of another story from my past, but I guess I might not share that here. Too many digressions.
And now we come to this semester, fresh start. Did I learn my lesson? Yes. I did the structured change earlier and I didn't hem. The first chapter, they sat wherever they wanted, which was all over the rooms (two classes now). But after the first test, which was this week, I made them switch. They didn't know the months of the year, yet, though, so I struggled for a bit on how to arrange them. Finally it came to me. They'd learned two-digit numbers, so I had them arrange themselves in a line at the front of the class according to the last two digits of their phone numbers. Brilliant, n'est-ce pas? Well, they actually had only learned to 69, so those with higher numbers didn't know what to do, and I was hearing a bit too much English, so I finally just said say both numbers as single digits. "Oh!" I sill heard too much English in spite of my constant reminders. It was still kind of fun, though. Good test for them--actually a language exercise I found on a website somewhere a couple years ago, but with something different, like letters of their name or something.
In any case...So, it's only been a few days, so how effective it is, I'm not sure yet, but I think it will help some students. I did see one girl who might have been near tears, which made me feel bad, but she might have been having a bad day for other reasons and that was just another straw. Otherwise, though they did act slightly unpleasantly surprised and still tried to sit in the back, it was not nearly as much as last semester, and most of it was in the first class--perhaps because they saw my wheels turning while I still tried to think about how to reorganize them--my showing a little less confidence, or perhaps because the classroom is so much bigger and social cultural norms make certain students feel awkward not sitting in the very back.
But I was confident about doing the change, and I think that was a difference from last semester that led to less grumbly compliance. My hypothesis, then, is that students are less likely to trust you as a teacher when you're not certain about something, but there's also a certain level of awkwardness in the hierarchical structure. For some reason, many students are reluctant to share their opinions until after you've made a decision. They want you to decide because you're in charge, but they'll let you know if they don't like what you decided. On the other hand, if you're decisive and there was never an option for them to share an opinion, they take it in stride--until the end of semester evaluations. :) (Which was also why I was surprised and glad no one said anything about this.)
So now to you: Is that how it's been for you as a student? as a teacher? What other thoughts do you have about seating arrangements? Teacher-student decision making?
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