“When you do the things that you can do, you will find a way.”
― A.A. Milne
The projector didn’t work in class last Friday, and our instructor found a temporary solution and asked us to gather around in a circle, in order to view the videos he had chosen for his lecture. We all moved tables and gathered around in a large circle. For the first time EVER since I started classes at OK College, I never experienced a lecture sitting in a circle to which I was surprised over what occurred once we fixed the layout of the classroom and moved our chairs.
What I observed was rather uncanny. Students that normally I have never heard speak before, began engaging to the questions in the lecture. All of us it seemed to me were more engaged with our instructor. We were able to actually see each other whereas the layout of our desks before we never really engaged much with each other because we were all facing the front. I wonder if anyone else in the class observed the same thing? I grasped the discussion more fully, instead of the instructor talking at us, in the ‘circle’ it felt he was talking to us.
I haven’t had time to look at the layout of classrooms pedagogy study or anything but I did find it interesting to see the transformation in my fellow students in class.
Here is a video I found to further think about seating arrangements:
Okanagan Valley View 