Students Shouldn't Sit in Groups When They Aren't Working Collaboratively
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder argues that the default seating arrangement of collaborative groups is counterproductive when students are doing individual work.
Key Takeaways
- Seating should match the task - Group seating during independent work invites distraction and off-task conversation
- Rows have their place - Traditional seating arrangements support focused, individual work
- Be intentional - Arrange the room for what students are actually doing, not based on a philosophical preference for collaboration
Transcript
Cooperative learning.
It would be difficult to overstate the emphasis over the past couple of decades on cooperative learning.
If you went to any kind of teacher training, teacher education program in the last couple of decades, you would have picked up on the idea that all of your activities that you do in your class are supposed to be done in cooperative groups.
Students are supposed to sit together in groups of four.
They're supposed to work together.
And I wonder how much time and attention we lose to that idea because I think cooperative work can make sense.
I think having students sit in groups and work together can make sense, but not all the time, not 100% of the time.
A lot of the time what's supposed to be happening is individual work, individual paying attention, individual, you know, doing your own work on your own paper.
And sitting in a group of four or so just means more distractions.
And it's wrong, according to the vibes of the profession, to separate your students' desks and have them sit in rows.
But I think if you want kids to pay attention when they're not supposed to be working in groups, they should probably have some space between them.
They should probably all be facing front.
They should probably not be sitting in groups, but should be sitting in rows.
And you may have even been in the position of having to defend having your desks in rows.
People will think you're a bad person if you don't have your desks in clusters with the students facing each other and with not all the students facing the front.
I think there's good to be had here from...
you know, group work.
But this idea that we can't have students facing forward ever is just way overkill, just an extreme position.
And I think if you want students to pay attention to you, if you want students to do their work individually, if you want students to take a test, if you want students to not talk to one another at some particular time, have them face forward.
Have them sit a little bit away from each other.
Have them not sit collaboratively if they're not working collaboratively at that time.
Let me know what you think.