An artifact of my teaching that aligns with TESS Domain 2: Classroom Environment is a seating chart I created during my time as an 11th grade ELA student teacher. This seating chart represents how the physical space of the classroom is organized and where students sit. I have identified the organization of the physical classroom space as an area of growth for me. In the high school setting, my mentor teacher allowed students to choose their seats as long as they were able to be productive and successful in class. Throughout our time together we regularly discussed how students were doing in class and how the desk arrangement benefited or disadvantaged our students. The seating chart shown in Figure 1 represents the arrangement we settled on for the majority of the semester. 

    Although I believe this seating chart caters to my goal of inviting students to participate in collaborative learning, this arrangement causes several students to have to move their desks in order to see the main whiteboard. The organization of the classroom matters because it communicates both directly and indirectly what is valued in the room. In this arrangement, students are positioned to speak, listen, and interact with the peers in their cluster. However, as their teacher, I know that I spend the majority of my time in the space near the teacher desk and the front whiteboard. The only time I am not in that area is when I am circling the room to listen to student discussions. The way the space is utilized communicates to students that I, the teacher, am the owner of the whiteboards and any other space beyond their desk cluster. This is where I see room for growth in my teaching. In order to use this space to further accomplish my teaching goals of sharing the responsibility of learning and teaching with students, I want to give students shared ownership of spaces like the whiteboards and bulletin boards. To encourage this, I will leave whiteboard markers at the students’ desk clusters so they can easily engage in cooperative learning and teaching by having direct access to materials. I hope to see students standing at the board and sharing what they are learning with their tablemates so their class can benefit from their ideas.