Building Community in the Classroom

I found an interesting article on building community in the classroom by Mishael Hittie. The article is very hands-on and has tons of real examples what works in these areas:

- Provide voice:
Making choices about what to learn, in which order, give choice activities, let students decide what to read and write about, let students set daily and weekly goals, let them decide where to sit.

- Be friends:
Create a feeling that we are a family of people here to learn together. Share weekend stories, play group games in the classroom, give them some time to chit-chat with their friends, do fun work together, have classroom-family activities.

- Promote respect
Establish daily routines that foster respect ("bathroom passes" versus "let's all line up for the bathroom"), respectful tone of voice, practise respectful ways in dealing with difficult students.

- Work together and problem solve
The classroom belongs to everyone, not just the teacher. Create classroom rules together with students, and not for students. Have classroom meetings, topics can be decided by teacher and students.

- Student leadership
Students have jobs, can have other roles such as peer mediators, leading classroom discussing. Let them play teacher, or experts to foster a deeper understanding of the subject matter.

- Individualize and discuss it
Students need to understand that we all have different abilities. Talk to them about multiple intelligences (more information is included in the article).


READ IT HERE!