Dynamic Seating Plan

I use this to generate and tailor around 5 seating plans for each class based on any l data I have been give or collected e.g. CEM, test scores. It now takes me under 5 minutes per class. The students turn up and I tell them which colour group to sit in each lesson, however, you could have a fixed seating plan (maybe one of these groups) and use the groups when you think appropriate. You do need to give some thought to where groups will sit based upon the layout of your classroom. It serves two purposes:

1. It allows me to adapt seating based upon lesson content and differentiate using the data e.g. sitting in mixed ability maths groups, selecting all top ability verbal students (without them realising) to work on a harder problem, switching from mixed to same ability groups by using the letters, in 10 (…ish) seconds. I really like getting students working on problems and then calling them out by ability to work on a harder problem or the same type with me. Lower ability to start the question off and get the easier marks, middle to develop the answer, higher to review and catch finer details like the use of units. It really allows me to focus my attention on where the students need to be pushed.

2. The original reason for making it was to encourage integration by getting students students to work with as many different people as possible without labor intensive preparation or students getting themselves into groups and potentially excluding people and making them feel awful!

If you have any feedback on how you have used it to structure activities or its success with integration I would love to hear it, maybe in the review section. I’m sure you don’t need the reminder but you know the kids better than the numbers and so you really need to adapt and not just blindly follow data.