Seating Charts can be a Very Useful and Effective Classroom Tool
Seating charts make a real difference to the classroom learning environment in terms of teacher effectiveness and student attainment. By using a seating chart the teacher is imposing their authority before the lesson has even begun and making it clear to the students that the classroom is the teacher’s territory and they are in control of it. By using their knowledge of students and putting careful thought into the design of the seating chart the teacher can minimize negative interactions between students and take advantage of peer-peer learning strategies.
In terms of student attainment there is always a concern that the lower ability students will have a negative impact on the attainment of the students with higher ability. However research at the Montana State University showed a huge attainment increase for the lower ability students with no detrimental impact on the high ability students, as shown below:
Research and the personal experiences of being teachers led us to consider how we can develop seating charts into a useful and effective classroom tool. We created Class Charts, which allows you to create seating charts and provides also a behavior management tool.
The features and benefits of Class Charts include:
- Add student photos, allowing you to put a face to the name (or use our pre-made icons).
- Using seating charts for effective differentiation – easily group or disperse certain students in the classroom (for example, placing the lower ability readers for together for additional support).
- Collaborate with colleagues and parents to tackle behavior as a team.
- Add key data about students – teachers can then be aware of student needs and abilities at a glance.
- Monitor behavior – track behavior effectively and view the data in gorgeous charts.
- Generate detailed reports for each class and individual students.
- Quickly import a large number of students
How to get started with Class Charts
Class Charts is a free online tool that allows you to create seating charts and manage behaviour. Here you can set up your own account at www.classcharts.com and create room layouts to represent your classrooms. Once you have added students to your account and a class is started you will be able to give student behaviour points and show key student data on your seating chart. Use either Class Charts icons or student photos to represent the students. A report will be created once a class has ended which will be useful for school leaders. Parents and student codes can be generated so individual student reports can be viewed online. You also have the opportunity to tackle behaviour with other teachers by collaborating with other colleagues in your school.
What are schools saying about Class Charts?
“Class Charts has resolved a key challenge for our school – How do we ensure staff can access and utilise key information to maximise classroom performance? The key advantage of the system is the ease by which such information is accumulated and displayed for staff use, with little effort. The flexibility of the software allows simple but significant changes to be made, supported by core data principles. Staff have embraced Class Charts at our school because it does exactly what they wanted. The job of putting this information together manually, is both onerous and less effective. The visual representation of the data really helps a teacher plan and organise the room to maximise learning opportunities and, if required, make changes quickly and easily. A real winner !”
- Roy Coulson, Deputy Headteacher, St James’s School
“We chose Class Charts because it is flexible to the needs of staff and provides the essential contextual information for each student from our SIS. Couple this with the ability for staff to choose their own data fields and reward/sanction choices means it suits all teachers, age groups and curriculum areas. The behaviour analytics are excellent for senior leaders to pick up trends and intervene where necessary. We can also trace the impact of those interventions, which is crucial.”
- Dave Cookson, Deputy Principal, Seaton Burn College
We hope that Class Charts continues to make a real impact in the classroom and leads to further improvements in student attainment.
Post contributed by Class Charts.
Related Posts (if the above topic is of interest, you might want to check these out):
Chronicle – A Transformative Multi-Media Assessment Tool for Teachers
Making the Most of TeacherWeb for Classroom Use
A Few Free Lesson Planning and Classroom Resources for Teachers