Show Notes
After trying numerous seating arrangements—including rows, blocks, and U shapes—educator Jay Schauer stumbled on a desk layout that outperformed them all. Edutopia’s community took notice.
In this episode of School of Practice, Schauer walks listeners through the many benefits of arranging desks in L-shaped groups, including better communication, greater flexibility, and improved learning outcomes for students. Plus, we ask him how to adapt the setup for testing, tiny rooms, and a range of other real classroom challenges.
Related resources:
A Desk Layout Alternative to Rows and Circles
A Strategic Approach to Seating Arrangements in High School
11 Smart Student Desk Layouts
Research: Learning With Jigsaw: A Systematic Review Gathering All the Pieces of the Puzzle More Than 40 Years Later
Boosting Student Belonging With the Jigsaw Technique
More from School of Practice
It started with a student writing a joke on a sticky note: “I hope we have no tests this year.”
Have you ever had a lesson get derailed by a power struggle with a student? Or is there a student in your class who you got off on the wrong foot with, and you’re not sure of the best way to repair the relationship?
Did you know that drawing can be a learning superpower—even for students who claim they’re not good at it?
Everyone makes mistakes—including teachers.
Like a lot of other educators, Nicholas Ferroni is trying to find his way back to a time before technology was the default classroom mode. He thinks he was a better teacher back then—and kids acted more like kids.