Planning to organize desks in smaller groups there is quite many things to consider concerning interactions between pupils. First challenge is how to make all the groups equal. How should teacher organize is without making groups and ability rating too obvious? Some people might think that it is a good thing and pushing more skillful pupils forward better. On that case there is danger that lower ability pupils will be left behind. Teacher must consider really carefully all of those groups separately. How to divide pupils same level group where some pupils might push some students forward and make the effort for them too.

One solution, I have seen, is to make a sociogram from connections between pupils. Pupils were asked to nominate different type of pupils in their own classroom. There were a few different type of person they needed to nominate: “My best friend”, “The person who am I most effective with” “The person I cannot work together”, for instance.Taking time using this kind of sociogram is important part of knowing your pupils. Teacher will get information and can make effective connections deciding sitting order. Teacher also needs to know the personalities of pupils and how thy will react to different kind of stimulations.

One problem in this kind of sitting order is will teacher manage to organize the whole classroom that everyone can see to the board without being in really uncomfortable ergonomic position. How to make it possible? The classrooms are not huge and every pupils have to have vision towards teacher and the board. That takes us to a situation what if there is someone needing special treatment? What about the disabled kids who needs to have certain place in the classroom?

If you manage, as a teacher to organize and make the perfect sitting order in groups, you can use it really effectively start using group works and working with pairs. Finding good connections between pupils helps them to discuss and work together with different kind of tasks. That increases also interactions between pupils. In that case there is more ‘pupil talk’ and the percentage of ‘teacher talk’ gets lower. That increases co-operational way to learn. In this kind of sitting order there is always a chance to have disorganized actions in classroom and it gives a better chance to have negative interactions. Pupils might talk more even when they need to listen and they can also use this opportunity to ‘go with the flow’ with the group. If there is more confident or some pupils takes too big role in the group that could decrease effective interactions between pupils.