The Active Seating Zone (An Educational Experiment)

How can we make a large class more lively? I tackled this question last term by allowing students to self-partition into different sets, with dramatic, and remarkably encouraging, results.

Last term, Spring 2024, I taught a “physics of renewable energy for non-science majors course” [1]. I often teach “general education” classes aimed at non-science-majors, including this one a few times previously. The prior term (Winter 2024) I taught the “Physics of Life” course I created several years ago, and as I wrote in an earlier post, that iteration was painful, with a lack of student engagement that was depressing for me and for the students who were enthusiastic about the topic. “Active learning” activities, especially involving discussions among groups, fell flat; questions were minimal; the atmosphere was lifeless. Outcomes of learning assessments (quizzes, exams) were also poor. Many faculty I’ve spoken to have commented on similar issues these days in gen-ed or intro-level courses.

Exploring the causes is important, but in this post I focus on actions that might ease the symptoms: What can we do about a listless class? Especially: What can we do that isn’t paternalistic — that acknowledges that students are adults and can participate or not as they wish; that acknowledges that students may have different preferences for how they learn; and that allows students who want the level of discussion and interaction that a college course should have to receive it?

I realized that engagement requires a critical mass: if you’re an engaged student, there’s a question posed that asks for discussion among students, and the students near you are zoned out or watching videos on their phones, your engagement is futile. (As students described to me in conversations Winter term.) You’ll need other engaged students to sustain any activity. It is — appropriately for this term’s class — rather like critical mass in a nuclear fission reaction.

How can we make a supercritical concentration of enthusiastic students? By putting them all together. After the first week of the term, when students had a sense of what the course is about and my approach to asking and inviting questions, I asked students to move. We’d have two zones in the classroom, an “active” zone in which I’d expect students to interact with me and with each other, and an “inactive” zone, in which I’d have no such expectation. I made clear that there was no grade advantage or penalty associated with either choice. (Was there an indirect effect on grades? Stay tuned!) The classroom is a large lecture hall, shown below, about 18 seats wide and 14 rows deep, with a capacity of about 220. The class enrollment was about 110. The “active” zone would be the front half of the middle part (green shading in the photo); the “inactive” zone would be the back half of the middle and all of the sides (orange). I deliberately included all of the sides in the inactive zone, for students who didn’t want to be in the active part but who wanted or needed proximity to me and the screen.

For the rest of the term, the students self-segregated. What happened next?

A lively room

The clearest outcome: a lively classroom! This exceeded my expectations — students in the active section were very active, talking to each other, asking all sorts of questions, and commenting in ways that spurred other students to comment. The active contingent was around a third of the class, but the room was perhaps twice as animated as any general-education class I’ve taught in many years. (Students agreed; more on this below.) Student questions and comments are valuable for everyone regardless of where they sit; they often clarify topics, or bring up issues that students especially care about.

There are, of course, other ways to ask questions. After every class, students had to submit “post-class notes,” brief summaries that could also include questions or requests that I would (almost always) address at the start of the next class. Also, I held office hours as always, which were useful and enjoyable.

Returning to the seating exercise: the classroom atmosphere in itself, however, would be reason enough to repeat this!

Shocking grade outcomes

How well did students in the different zones learn the material? Here’s a graph, one of many I made, that shows scores on the midterm exam sorted by seating section. (I asked on the exam: What area do you usually sit in?)

I was expecting a sizeable difference, but I was stunned by the contrast between the zones: on average, a two letter grade difference. (Mean +/- std. dev. 84 +/- 18% active zone students, 65 +/- 21% inactive zone.) Actually, I wasn’t that stunned because I had made similar graphs in prior weeks for quiz results that revealed a roughly one letter grade difference. Notably, I showed these graphs to the class. We discussed the data and potential mechanisms, noting that “correlation is not causation,” etc. The active-area students were themselves the best advocates for their area, encouraging others to come. Few students moved, however. (Two, according to my survey.) The graph for the final exam is almost identical (shown below):

The difference in overall course grades isn’t quite as stark, due to several other components to the course (e.g. group projects, homework):

Not only is the difference in average score strikingly higher for the active-zone students, it was also the case that almost no one in the active section did poorly. (One or two did, but I’m fairly sure they rarely attended class; a topic in itself…) It’s not a difficult course, and a level of engagement that most people reading this — not typical of the college populace — would assume is minimal suffices for a good grade.

What did students think?

I wanted more insights into what students thought about their experiences and why they made the choices they did. I therefore handed out a survey along with the final exam — there was more than enough time to complete both — and, though I dislike such tactics, I offered a tiny bit of extra credit for completing it. (See [2] for how I made this anonymous.)

As I expected based on several conversations, the active zone students had a lot of positive assessments; 79% of those in the Active section felt that talking with those around them was helpful. “It was nice…when I talked to someone we landed on an idea that made sense logically. ” “I’m shy but when I talked with other people it did help.” Also notable, “People in front of me always seemed attentive which influenced me to do the same.” Many students also noted that it’s easier to see in the front, which is of course a large confounding factor.

What about the inactive zone students? I was expecting complaints; these existed, but were mostly directed at other students rather than at me, complaining for example, that students around them were inattentive or distracting. This was rather sad to read, since it is true that one could imagine an inactive zone filled with serious but quiet students. That, however, is not the world we live in. I have considerable sympathy for quiet students — I’ve had to work quite consciously at being more outgoing — but such effort is both valuable and necessary.

Next time

Would I implement the seating zones again in other gen-ed classes? Definitely! The impact on the class atmosphere alone, and on the mood of the students who care about the topic, makes it worth it. (Unlike last term, I didn’t fantasize about running off and becoming a park ranger. At least not because of teaching.) There are a few modifications that may be worth making, however:

1. A third zone, in which students don’t need to interact but promise to pay attention. This addresses the “quiet but engaged” students. In practice, I doubt this would succeed; I’m sure most students would claim that they’d be in this category, but the temptation of TikTok videos would win out.
2. Having students experience sitting in different parts of the room, and with different people, before deciding anything. This would be logistically challenging but very useful. As it is, students pick a spot and stick with it; I found their reluctance to move even when faced with evidence that moving might help them surprising. Alternatively, if there’s enough capacity, I could block off the back part of the room entirely for the first week or so, and then students would choose their seating after having experienced the front part of the class.

It would be interesting to make the active section the back half of the room, but this would be awkward and difficult in practice.

There’s more I could write about the course itself — the weekly “question time,” my pre-class energy-related music, an excellent visit from a former student now working on energy policy, and a trio of mini-projects. Perhaps another post…

(Another thing that deserves its own post: A list I made of favorite mind-expanding biology-ish books, here. It includes a bit of self promotion.)

If anyone reading tries out seating zones self-selection, or anything similar, please let me know! One local colleague gave it a shot (mid-way through the term) and liked it!

Today’s illustration

I painted (watercolor) the glass from William Eggleston’s wonderful photograph “Untitled (Glass on Plane),” 1965. [Link] I think it turned out well! I traced the outlines; the interesting part is the coloring. Just now, I checked out a book of Eggleston’s photographs from our Art and Design library. It’s 11am on a Wednesday; I’m pretty sure I was the only person in the library other than the librarian. (It’s summer; I think most non-science buildings on campus are ghost towns. It’s calm and otherworldly, but a bit sad.)

Notes

[1] More precisely, this is “The Physics of Solar and Renewable Energies.” No, the title doesn’t make sense, since solar is renewable. I didn’t create it; changing a course name is a tedious process. I also include a bit of nuclear power, so “The Physics of Alternative Energies” would be an even better title. (This is Physics 162 at the University of Oregon, by the way.)

[2] To award the points I needed students to write their names, but I also wanted anonymous feedback, so I never saw the names. A wonderful librarian interested in this pedagogical adventure (Annie Zeidman-Karpinski) took the envelope containing surveys, noted and cut off the names, and along with two thoughtful student workers (Kayla Kuo and Pete Vidito) tabulated and summarized the student comments.

[3] Added Aug. 10, 2024: See also the note here, on something vaguely like a pre- and post- class assessment, that gets at causation.

— Raghuveer Parthasarathy. July 31, 2024