Thoughts about the Impact of Seating Plans on Class
Dynamics
Sophie Sunderland
This paper was presented at the Teaching and Learning Forum
held at UWA in 2007. It was strongly attended and stimulated
robust discussion about the continual negotiation of power and
privilege that shapes tutorial engagements. Several attendees
commented that the issue of power is infrequently discussed but
has a broad range of permutations and effects on teaching.
However, this paper specifically reflects on how the physical
arrangement of rooms relates to power dynamics, and in so doing
critiques models of power-sharing.
While tutors are responsible for encouraging productive debate
and thoughtfulness among students in tutorials, postgraduate
students and sessional staff – particularly those who are
young and inexperienced – face different challenges than,
for example, tenured academics. Indeed, a host of factors
influence interactions between tutors and students beyond the
objectives of the class. These include the professional status,
gender, sexuality, race, age, class, ethnicity, and religion of
students and tutors (Ellsworth 1989; Giroux 1997; Todd 1997;
Kopelson 2003). This paper finds that young, inexperienced tutors
may benefit from selectively using a ‘traditional,’
hierarchical room arrangement and/ or performance of authority in
cases where productive interactions are limited or co-opted by
difficult power dynamics.
A body of critical pedagogical literature encourages tutors to
‘power-share’ in order to encourage successful
discussion in tutorials. This includes the arrangement of seating
(Shor 1996). As part of the supporting materials I was given as a
Postgraduate Teaching Intern within the Centre for Advancement of
Teaching and Learning was a handout entitled, Room Arrangement:
Creating an Optimum Learning Environment. It explained that desks
arranged in a circle, U-shape, small groups or lines affect the
extent to which students engage (or avoid engaging) in
discussion. A circular arrangement was shown to enable more
democratic modes of engagement. This involved the tutor sitting
among the students rather than at the front of the room. Other
literature confirmed the importance of power-sharing by
suggesting tutors reveal a little of their history, personal
anxieties about teaching and anecdotes in order to
‘humanise’ themselves in the eyes of the students
(Bertola & Murphy 1994).
However, these suggestions do not take into account the
variety of subject positions that students and tutors occupy.
While working as a young, female postgraduate tutor, I solicited
feedback from students on the running of tutorial sessions, and
six of the fifteen students requested we move the desks into a
circular arrangement. Interestingly, this arrangement appeared to
exacerbate one student’s domination of discussions and
tendency to challenge me. In order to maintain productive
engagements between all of the students and myself, I discovered
that through standing and circulating the room in a performance
of hierarchical authority, the students’ participation and
tutorial dynamics improved.
Thus, in some instances, it may be more effective for tutors
who are young, female, and/or otherwise marginalised to assume a
position of authority when tutoring by reworking or selectively
refusing the ‘power-sharing’ model. Although many
professors find pedagogical value in ‘shrugging off’
the image of a distant, lofty authority, this does not
necessarily apply to young tutors. Hence, it is important that
pedagogical literature notes the importance of identity in
discussions of power, to ensure that learning is productive
within the sensitive environment of the tutorial.
References
- Bertola, Pat and Eamon Murphy. (1994). Tutoring at
University: A Beginner’s Practical Guide. Bentley:
Curtin University.
- Ellsworth, Elizabeth. “Why Doesn’t This Feel
Empowering? Working Through the Repressive Myths of Critical
Pedagogy.” Harvard Educational Review 59.3
(1989): 297- 324.
- Giroux, Henry A. and Patrick Shannon. (Eds.). (1997).
Education and Cultural Studies: Toward a Performative
Practice. London, New York: Routledge.
- Kopelson, Karen. “Rhetoric on the Edge of Cunning;
Or, the Performance of Neutrality (Re)Considered as a
Composition Pedagogy for Student Resistance.” College
Composition and Communication 55.1 (2003): 115-46.
- Shor, Ira. (1996). When Students Have Power:
Negotiating Authority in a Critical Pedagogy. Chicago: U
Chicago Press.
- Todd, Sharon. (1997). “Psychoanalytic Questions,
Pedagogical Possibilities, and Authority: Encountering the
‘And’.” Education and Cultural Studies:
Toward a Performative Practice. Eds. Henry Giroux and
Patrick Shannon. London, New York: Routledge. pp. 67-78.
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