Flexible seating is very popular these days and has become more and more popular every year. But what does flexible seating really mean? I will try to describe the concept here and also walk through the advantages and disadvantages of flexible seating.
Flexible seating means that you as a school or institution provide a variety of seating options for your students. This gives the students themselves the opportunity to choose the seat where they themselves feel that their learning will be best. An environment of flexible seatings is a great mix of different furniture. It can be the traditional tables, different types of chairs, comfortable sofas, bean bags, exercise balls, pillows, rugs, etc.
What is flexible seating?
Classroom seating layout has been more or less the same for over 50 years.
The base has been the traditional rows and columns layout, although in the last 20-30 years different new variants of the layout have emerged (eg U-shape, Stadium, etc.) In recent times, however, it has bubbled up a major challenger to the classic classrooms, the concept of flexible seating.
We have already seen this concept in workplaces in the form of activity-based workplaces, where employees have the opportunity to sit down at the place/environment that is best suited for the task they are currently to perform. We are now also in a time when students will have the opportunity to take their own responsibility for their learning in a better way. So it is quite natural that flexible seating is also implemented in schools.
In flexible seating, the classroom is set up to give the student several different options. They can choose a place based on which group they work with, or how they feel on the specific day. In some cases, you may want to pull away a little and sit a little aside in a comfortable bean bag to maximize your learning.
In some camps, there is quite a lot of skepticism about introducing flexible seating in the school environment. The biggest criticism is that flexible seating removes an important structure from learning and that the teacher risks losing control of his students.
However, some believe the exact opposite, that you as a teacher get less control instead of making your students more involved. If the students get a feeling that they own the classroom, they can instead feel an increased sense of security and belonging. In the long run, this can mean that the student assimilates the learning and knowledge in a better way.
Is flexible seating right for your classroom?
Most classrooms are well suited for flexible seating. But if you teach in a very small classroom, it can be a little difficult to get the furniture in a good way. Flexible seating usually requires that there is some distance between the different islands that you create with different types of furniture. Here it is important to have a little imagination, common sense combined with creativity.
Should it then be completely free for all students to choose where to sit? Broadly speaking YES, but it is also of great importance that there are some regulations developed. This set of rules, which should be reviewed with all parties, should address what is accepted and not accepted to do and also how different situations should be handled. What happens if two students want to sit in the same place? How should we handle it if a student does not fit on the couch with his friends? Are there clear possibilities for adaptations of the room in such situations? Is there a risk of disturbing other people by suddenly starting to refurnish? Should you always restore the room to what it looked like at the start of the lesson?
Does flexible seating help students learn?
The traditional classroom symbolizes very clearly that the focus is on the front of the classroom. The benches or tables are facing the teacher and the whiteboard. Students usually sit behind and in front of a classmate and have only the teacher’s face turned towards them. This type of classroom seating risks becoming a one-way communication, where the teacher only acts as a lecturer and with impaired communication between the students.
By placing benches in groups instead, communication from several different groups is promoted. If you as a student have the opportunity to sit next to or opposite one or more classmates, there is a great opportunity that you feel safer in the classroom. This security and closeness to your classmates mean that your willingness to communicate is greater.
A study of schools in England (Clark 2002 – “Building education: the role of the physical environment in enhancing teaching and learning – issues in practice”), talks about the importance of flexibility and adaptation for future school buildings. He believes that the use of new technology together with the development of curricula and the pedagogical workplaces high demands on the development of classrooms as well. The classroom environment must be flexible to be able to function for all types of teaching and to be able to meet the students’ needs.
A student that, during the school day, has the opportunity to choose and vary where he/her should sit is also ergonomic and nice for the body. Since students and staff often sit for long periods at a time, it is important to have furniture that is ergonomically designed to avoid unnecessary strain on the body. It is therefore important that the flexible classroom offers several different types of seating and to adapt the different furniture to the tasks and subjects for which the classroom is intended. Maybe the traditional benches should be completely removed in favor of round tables that make it easier to have group work. Maybe you should have a more relaxed corner where students have the opportunity to sit in a bean bag, etc.
Does flexible seating work in high school?
In general, it can be said that the older a student is, the easier it is for him or her to take responsibility for their own learning. Of course, this also means that you as a teacher do not have to constantly be supervising in the same way as you might do if you teach younger students. It is the very absorption of knowledge that is important and it is of great importance that the student is allowed to take responsibility for their own learning. In this responsibility, of course, the best-adapted environment should benefit learning.