A Case for Space 
When I arrived in my classroom two days before school started, my room was laid out so that the two rows of students on either side of the room were back to back. This was awful because all the students had to do to talk to one another was spin around in their rolling chairs! They could speak face-to-face with absolutely nothing between them. This made teaching difficult. No physical boundaries combined with my lack of classroom management skills took its toll on me. 

One weekend, I decided to put a stop to this. I move my room around so that at least the desks were between each adjacent row. The students can roll back and peer over their monitors if they really want to talk, but at least it does require some effort. It is amazing how much quieter this made my room. Feng shui (the art of arranging a room for the sake of tranquility) must have been invented by a teacher!