What seating arrangement is best for your classroom? Traditional rows and columns? U-shaped? Clusters? Do you want your students seated alphabetically or randomly? Use this spreadsheet to plan and experiment with various seating layout options for your classroom!
Each layout has its own pros and cons. Our goal today is not to evaluate which one is most effective. Rather, we want to provide you with a simple spreadsheet tool to survey a variety of layouts depending on your preference!
How do we begin? All you need to do is list your students’ names in the columns B and D in the worksheet, “Student Names.” Be sure to sort the names alphabetically in column D. To alphabetize, we use the filter option and click the first option, ‘Sort A->Z’. And that’s it!
For those curious how we built this spreadsheet, you’ll notice that for the randomize option, we built in the RANDBET function in the same worksheet. We also used simple IF functions in the layout sheets to toggle between the alphabetized option or the random option, depending on what you choose. (For those interested in how to create the option box, check out how data validation works).
A few sample layouts are below. Feel free to access the spreadsheet in either GoogleSheets or Excel:
Seating Layout 1: Traditional Layout in Alphabetical Order
Seating Layout 2: Horseshoe/U-Shaped in Random Order
Seating Layout 3: Clusters in Alphabetical Order
