Plan your room setup carefully to provide your audience with the best possible learning environment. Use a setup that supports your teaching style and maximizes the effectiveness of A/V equipment (12) and learning activities (7).

Application: dealing with large groups of participants.

Limitations: hinders dialogue, and limits interaction. This set up also makes it easy for trouble students (22) to “hide”, in the back and invites criticism and disruptive comments “from the peanut gallery”.

Application: interaction and group work with table work space required; instructor at head of table to access flip charts etc.

Limitations: difficult to use projectors. If this style must be used in a plenary remember that one half the people usually have their backs to the instructor.

Remove the tables if a work space is not required. This setup works best for discussions, problem solving, personal sharing and role-playing.

Application: training with considerable amount of note taking and self-study; working space required for books. Tests may often conclude the training.

Limitations: hinders dialogue, and limits interaction.

Application: discussions and group work (7) (work space required) with considerable A/V usage. Good visibility, acoustics, and eye contact. Instructor can move freely.

Limitations: maximum group size of 30 participants. If breakout opportunities for hands-on learning aids (8) are needed from the U-Shape, simply move chairs around the corners of the “U”. The rearranging of chairs is often injects some new energy into the group.