Walking around schools, I still see rows and rows of desks. What? It's not every classroom, but it shows that some of us are still teaching in the 21st century using 20th century design. So if you are one of those row people (I used to be one too), this post is for you. Some of us are willing to jump in and change everything all at once. But perhaps you want to redesign your classroom in more manageable chunks; dip your toe in the water with one or two changes.

​Whatever changes  you hope to implement, I highly recommend thinking them through before students set foot in the door. Classroom design should support learning; it needs to be planned and implemented before the school year begins so that your focus can then shift to building relationships with students, teaching content, creating your classroom community, and fine-tuning your classroom design. Here is checklist of sorts for establishing a more flexible space. You can do all of them, one, or a combination of a few. So bust up the rows and make the 2018-2019 a year of positive change for you and your students.

For those of you who follow our blog regularly (thank you by the way), you know that in September my classroom went flexible. I can't take credit for the idea. My co-teacher, Hannah was dying to try it and so when my assistant principal asked if we would be interested in piloting a flexible seating classroom the answer was yes. Hannah and I did a lot of reading and research, she scoured the internet for deals and then one day we headed to IKEA.