Rationale

Student desk and seating arrangement should not only be comfortable, but flexible as well. By putting students into rows and setting them across from one
another, students will be able to make eye contact with their peers for the most part. However, it also creates enough adaptability to be able to move the desks
into a large circle or into small pods of 4 or 5. It’s inevitable that some students are going to be uncomfortable with this seating arrangement. However, the same
is to be said for just about all alternative organizations. Additionally, adding a rug and alternative seating options like a couch, and beanbags can help reduce
student stress (Merrill 2018). These items give the room a more cozy feel, and therefore reduce student stress by allowing them to get up and move around
freely, rather than being confined to a desk which may cause students to develop feelings of claustrophobia or anxiety.
In regards to the placement of the teachers desk, as a teacher you don’t want to sit around the front of the room and teach. Nothing is more boring than listening
to someone talk for an hour from their chair. By having the desk in the back of the room, as an educator I can be mindful of how I am utilizing the space at the
front of my classroom.
As for the setup of different resources: all resources should be accessible to students at any given point in the class period, including absent work located in the
back of the room filing cabinet, textbook and reading materials located on the bookshelf on the back left corner of the classroom. Furthermore, while not
immediately accessible to students, resources like toothbrushes, deodorant, and hair combs are available with permission from me, the educator.

Sources:

Merrill, S. (2018, June 14). Flexible classrooms: Research is scarce, but promising. Edutopia. Retrieved October 19, 2021, from
https://www.edutopia.org/article/flexible-classrooms-research-scarce-promising