Let them Choose Seats – Ways to Promote Student Autonomy – 2 of 11
2. Let them Choose Seats
I must admit that I used seating charts for many years when I was teaching high school students. To me, choosing their own seats meant classroom management issues and therefore less learning. You know what happens. They sit with their friends or worse, their crushes, and they can’t focus on anything you do. My strategy was to let students choose their seats for the first few days of school so I could identify all the friendships in class. Then, I would make a seating chart to split them all up.
Instead of waving the white flag and assigning seats, I should’ve used those teachable moments to talk about personal goals, responsibility, self-awareness, and self-control.
“Is this where you will learn best?” I should’ve asked when a student made a poor choice of seats. Of course there will always be those students who are simply not mature enough or self-aware of their goals and how they learn best to make this an effective intervention. However, should the other students (often the majority), who ARE mature enough, suffer for the indiscretions of a few?
Assign seats to those students who really can’t help themselves but keep the door open for them to choose their seats later in the year pending improved behavior. Everyone else should be allowed to choose their seats. I found that friends can be very supportive and helpful to each other in the learning process. Students who feel comfortable with those around them have one less distraction to get in the way of their learning process.
A corollary to this freedom is to let students pick their partner(s) for group activities or projects. Giving students the option to work alone or with 1-3 other students will eliminate issues with group dynamics that may derail their focus on the purpose of the project. Once again, in the event that students pick their friends and thus fall behind in their work, you can take advantage of this teachable moment so that next time those students will choose more wisely. Basically, by letting them make mistakes and reap the consequences, they’re more receptive to our advice in picking future partners.
If we preempt the mistake, they won’t believe the consequences will actually occur.
One caveat may be if your goal is to foster empathy, promote compromise, or develop team building skills. In this case, a diverse group of students who may not otherwise interact would be more appropriate.
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