My first classroom was a little blue trailer on the edge of the soccer field. Every morning, I got my shoes clogged with mud hiking across the field, but I loved my corner of campus, and I felt pretty free to design it to work best for my students.
And it turned out what really worked best was constant change. Our desks were attached to our chairs, so to move one was to move both. And move them I did, frequently working up a sweat between classes as I threw them around the room as quickly as I could, moving from circular discussion seating in one class to desks pushed against the walls for a visiting theater artist in another, station seating for book clubs in one back to circular discussion seating in another.
I wanted the room to work for the task, not the task to conform to the room. And that meant staying flexible, even though I hadn’t yet heard the phrase “flexible seating” and certainly didn’t have any couches, yoga balls, or beanbags. I didn’t even know I wanted those yet.
These days, it’s that word “flexible” that defines so much that is helpful in modern classroom design. Flexible seating, flexible displays, flexible resources. I want your students to be able to collaborate with you from day to day to create the environment that will help them shine.
So what might that look like these days? Let’s dig in.
Ooh, one more thing before we start. Throughout this podcast, and the ones to come in this series, I’ll be showcasing graphics and displays from the #evolvingEDdesign Toolkit, a vast free resource I made for you. You can grab it here. Please share your classroom design stories, questions, photos and ideas with the #evolvingEDdesign hashtag across platforms so we can continue the conversation off the pod!
Defining “Flexible Seating” (Whatever your Budget)
Let’s start with the seating you’re in. Your classroom may be like mine – full of inflexible seating which is, nevertheless, flexible. Whether you have tables and chairs, desks attached to chairs, or some other modern modular set-up, chances are it can be dragged from one place to another.
A classroom can be set up effectively for so many different situations. At times, you will want to curate the space for what works for the plan you’ve got. At other times, you may want to give students freedom to curate the space for the task they’re working on, giving them agency over their set-up.
You might want the desks in a circle for Harkness, in a double-layered U for a poetry slam or theater performance, pulled into even clusters for book clubs or small group discussion, scattered across the room with varied spaces for different groups of students and various media consumption and creation tasks for stations, coffee shop work seating, or project work.
But you don’t need to do all this rearranging yourself. If you have some basic templates for your seating, like your student-led discussion set-up, your coffee shop layout, your book clubs arrangement, then your students can help you make the shift quickly when they arrive in your room. Projecting a quick slide with that layout on it will make it easy to convey to them what you’re going for.
As you consider your layout for any given day, consider how you can provide options for students, building more opportunities for agency right within your set-up. If students are working independently, you might provide options like these…
- A counter area where students can go to work quietly on their own, or which they can take over with a small group (desks or tables lined up is a great substitute for an actual counter, though an actual counter would be amazing)
- An area (or two) with resources like exemplars and scaffolds to provide guidance for students as they work
- Places intentionally designed for media use, with access to plug-ins and headphones
- Empty whiteboards, chalkboards, or wall space with post-its or butcher paper where student groups can showcase their ideas
- Flexible seating areas if you’ve got them, like a few pillows grouped together on the floor for readers, or a couch where partners might chat
I sometimes see teachers post over in Creative High School English asking how to spend budget, so let’s consider some options when it comes to flexible seating. I’ve been reading Scott Doorley and Scott Witthoft’s book, make space, about creating collaborative, creative spaces at the Stanford d.School and beyond, and one of my favorite easy tips they share is to add caster wheels to the bottom of furniture. They’ve got a signature set of rolling red Ikea couches at the d. School, providing a fun model of flexibility.
Flexible seating comes in so many flavors. Try to think about colors and fabrics that will wear well, or invest in fabric covers at the same time that you purchase furniture. The last thing you want is an expensive upholstered couch that gets a big stain on day two. A set of floor cushions, an inexpensive or thrifted couch, a pair of high stools along a high table – any of these options will provide a whole new dimension to your classroom seating.
Supporting Student Work with Flexible Displays
Ok, so let’s move on to another flexible classroom element that can help support your students’ creativity: flexible displays. If you’ve ever spent a couple of hours taping up student work, only to want to replace it a few weeks later, you know the power of a flexible display option! I want you to be able to hang up exemplars, resource posters, inspiring photos or articles, writing prompts, student work, and whatever else you want, in about 90 seconds rather than 90 minutes.
Consider three easy options – frames, boards, and lines.
A wall of empty frames is a canvas for whatever you want, especially if you add a clip in the middle of each one where you can pop in anything you want in a flash. A bulletin board with or without a background paper covering the corkboard and a handful of pushpins in one corner is always ready to showcase whatever you want on your wall. And then there’s my personal favorite, the line with tiny clothespins. It’s perhaps the easiest, fastest option. Take two Command hooks, tie a ribbon or some twine in between, and add your clothespins. Rinse and repeat back and forth across a wall as much as you wish.
Here’s one display from the #evolvingEDdisplay toolkit that would be a good one to use during project work or genius hour, when you’re wanting to encourage students to think creatively, take risks, and get through the hurdles that are a normal part of any creative process.
Here’s another display option to encourage creativity. In the first talk in the Stanford d.School’s “Masters of Creativity” series on Youtube, “Input Obsession (Design Thinking,” professor Jeremy Utley talks about how important it is for creativity to be around ideas and inspiration from outside the area of the project someone is working on, a call for breadth of input also prioritized by Dr. Zorana Ivcevic Pringle in her book, The Creativity Choice, which she talked about on the podcast with us earlier this year.
For this display, you and your student can co-create a display that showcases inspiration from across disciplines, cultures, and modes.
As you launch into any type of project, talk to students about how creativity thrives on a breadth of input, and invite them to email you images of what they find inspiring (that you can then print), or to bring them in as hard copies.
Coming Next
Ok, my friend, today was all about setting up a flexible spaces classroom space to support collaborative, creative work. Next week on the pod, we’ll be back to talk about building more student agency into lesson design, building on this creative space to support flexible learning. Don’t forget to grab your copy of the #evolvingEDdesign toolkit for everything we’ve talked about, and everything we’re going to talk about, and to share your thoughts under the same hashtag.
If you’re looking for more inspiration today, check out the “Elements of Surprise” page of your toolkit, which will take you on a fun jaunt around the internet to see creative, collaborative spaces across the United States.
Sources Considered, Consulted, and Cited for this Series & for the Toolkit:
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Doorley, Scott & Witthoft, Doorley. make space: How to Set the Stage for Creative Collaboration. John Wiley and Sons, 2012.
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“High Tech High Virtual Tour.” High Tech High Unboxed Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87xU9smFrj0 . Accessed October 15, 2025.
“Inside YouTube’s Biggest Office In America | Google’s YouTube Headquarters Office Tour.” The Roaming Jola Youtube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P26fDfFBx8I . Accessed October 14, 2025.
Novak, Katie. Universal Design for Learning in English Language Arts. Cast Inc., 2023.
Potash, Betsy. “Research-Based Practices to Ignite Creativity, with Dr. Zorana Ivcevic Pringle.” The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, Episode 393.
Pringle, Zorana Ivcevic. The Creativity Choice. Public Affairs, 2025.
Ritchart, Ron and David Perkins. “Making Thinking Visible.” Educational Leadership, February 2008, p.p. 57-61. https://pz.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/makingthinkingvisibleEL.pdf. Accessed October 13, 2025.
Richardson, Carmen and Punya Mishra. “Scale: Support of Creativity in a Learning Environment,” 2017. Accessed with permission through Google Drive.
Richardson, Carmen and Punya Mishra. “Learning environments that support student creativity: Developing the SCALE.” Thinking Skills and Creativity, Volume 27, March 2018, p.p. 45-54. Accessed online at https://doi-org.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/10.1016/j.tsc.2017.11.004, October 13, 2025.
Stockman, Angela. Make Writing: 5 Strategies that turn Writer’s Workshop into a Maker Space. Hack Learning Series, 2015.
Utley, Jeremy. “Masters of Creativity (Education Edition) #1: Input Obsession (Design Thinking).” Stanford d.School Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LosDd3Q0yQw . Accessed October 15, 2025.Utley, Jeremy and Kathryn Segovia. “Masters of Creativity: Updating the Creative Operating System (Design Thinking).” Stanford d.School Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggza7df7N7Y&t=2233s. Accessed October 17, 2025.
