A New Look for the New Year

For the past 6 years I've had desks in my classroom arranged in table groups of 4, like this:

It's worked quite well for me, though there were always a few spots where students had their backs partially to the front board.  This year when I came back after summer break, the desks were in rows after being taken out and put back in for floor waxing.  So, I decided to try out a new arrangement.

The idea is to have everyone arranged in more of a U-shape, facing the center of the room.  I did this during my first two years of teaching in my math classes, but I haven't used it since.

I've made a few modifications since the above picture was taken.  The desks are now in pairs of 2 within the U-shapes, so students have a convenient partner for quick speaking exercises.  There is one group of 3 tables for my classes which have an odd number of students.  Here's what I think I've settled on:

I'm using Name Tents again this year to learn students' names and mix them up with different partners at the beginning of the year, so that has made it easy to tweak things a bit as I go.  

So far, I am quite happy with it.  Students took their first quiz this week, and I didn't move desks for that.  I reminded them to focus on their own work, and the questions are in a different order for each student, so I don't think there was much of a problem with wandering eyes.  So far, so good!