Alaina Goldberg, News Editor

Research shows that when students are comfortable in class, they are more open to listening and learning. Desiree Alba, Honors Spanish 3, 4 and 5 teacher at Penn-Trafford high school, is applying this idea in her classroom after saying she first saw flexible seating in her daughter’s third grade.

    Comfort comes in many forms in her classroom: sitting on medicine balls, traditional desks, or even standing or sitting on the floor. This system allows students to move around and utilize different seating in order to do their best work and facilitate learning, Alba explained.

     The new setup offers a noticeable change from a normal classroom setup. By not having the typical rows of desks students are confined to during a 41-minute class period, they can have a new experience in class.

     “The students are so much more relaxed and I’m loving the amount of conversation being seated this way provokes in my classroom,” Alba said.

     She compared it to being able to walk into a coffee shop and choose where you feel most comfortable sitting. Students now have this luxury in her classroom.

     “They were very confused at first, but I think they are getting used to it,” Alba added. “We already had one yoga ball pop and some say that the floor seats are not very comfortable.”

     Although getting adjusted to the new setup was challenging for some students, for Alba, making it part of her curriculum for the year was not a problem at all.

     Alba said that speaking activities and group work are a huge part of any language classroom, and the new setup is made for just that.

     “I will be tweaking a few of the centers, but I am definitely keeping the new classroom setup,” Alba said.

     Junior Erin Brady has Alba for Spanish 4 and said she likes the new setup.

     ¨I feel positive about the new classroom setup and appreciate Alba´s passion about it. [However], some people are not fond of certain seat positions,¨ Brady said.

        Brady also said that some learn better at traditional desks, but the flexible seating benefits other students.

      ¨I would like if later on in the year we could pick our own seats,” Brady added.

     Health teacher and athletic trainer Larry Cooper said he believes that if students are too comfortable, they will not pay attention and therefore are less likely to earn. He added, however, that they do not want to be in pain either, so the exercise balls are a happy medium.

     ¨(Flexible seating) benefits you by working your core, which is the stabilizer for your body,¨ Cooper said.

      It will help with posture, but it may be an issue of pain to anyone who has pre-existing back problems. There have been multiple studies done on the idea of flexible seating. A study done by Brea Capell for the Northwest Missouri State University was used to show the importance of the use of stability balls in place of chairs in the classroom.

     After performing a study of students who used exercise balls while taking a test, Capell concluded that kids scored the same score or a little higher when using exercise balls.

     ¨Good posture on the exercise balls is important [if this is where students choose to sit on a given day in Alba´s classroom],¨ Cooper said.

     To see more studies done on the idea of flexible seating in a classroom, links are available at theptwarrior.com. The stability of the setup and class depends on the behavior and productivity of the students, which can be shown through these studies.