Where you sit in the classroom can make or break you in school. When I was beginning college, a professor gave me some advice that may have been a reason I was able to make it through some courses. I was told to sit in the middle three seats of the first two rows. I was told that sitting here will allow the professor to see you, you to see the professor, and keep you from getting distracted.There are also assumptions made of you depending on where you sit in the classroom. The people in the first row are often assumed to be the over eager teacher’s pets. The people in the back are thought of as the slackers, they feel as though they are out of sight, out of mind. People in the middle towards the back are often the popular kids, the center of attention.
Skyrill.com created this infographic based on a class of graduate students in the summer of 2011. The dots/students are shaded based on whether they tend to jump around, stay in one place, or stay in one region. Every seat, except one, is sat in at some point. That one seat is in the first row, third from the right. I wonder why students avoided this seat?
It would be interested to use this infographic and do the same in one’s own classroom with the students help, except looking at grades made based on position. Since grades are involved it may be a good idea to use a class from a few years previous if at all possible. It would also be helpful if the seats were on a rotation. For instance, every two weeks, everyone moves up a seat and the front row moves to the back. The students can track each students grade, see where their grades were at their highest and where they were at the lowest. They can also look at what the average grade was for each seat. I wonder how many students will continue to want to sit in the back of the classroom after this assignment.
Blog: http://goo.gl/9CcsG
Interactive Infographic: http://goo.gl/ZxMFr