Team Building on the First Day
Establishing Student-Generated Classroom Expectations
This article suggests that teachers allow middle school students to compose their own classroom behavioral expectations as an opening day team-building activity.
On the first day of school in the typical middle school classroom in the typical middle school, the typical teacher traditionally hands out neatly packaged sets of rules and expectations, which are sent home for the parents to read, sign, and return. While it is imperative for a teacher to establish ground rules from the get-go, middle school students usually have no investment in the process, and pay marginal attention at best to the expectations. They’ve been there, and done that before. But, what would happen if the teacher turned the tables on the students and said it was up to them to write their own behavioral norms and expectations?
Creating Classroom Behavioral Norms and Expectations
Before allowing students to create their own rules, they need a understandable foundation from which to build. That is why the teacher should insist on as few absolutes as possible. Kids have a hard time memorizing ten pages of ‘you shall not’ rules, so why not keep it simple? Experience dictates that the two most important and logical expectations for a teacher should be that each day the class will move forward, and that the students will show consideration for each other, the teacher, and the school property. Putting everything else aside, if every day a class advances and works as a team, most other issues will take care of themselves.
The students have a very clear vision of how a functional class should look and feel, and if a teacher asks, they will be happy to talk about it. So, give them that chance!
The First Classroom Cooperative Learning Project
Write the two topic words on the board – movement and regard, or growth and respect, or any synonyms of these words. Make sure that everyone understands what the words mean with a quick check for understanding exercise. Next, randomly divide the class into two teams and assign each team one of the two topic words. Charge each team with the task of discussing among themselves what the topic word means, and more importantly, what does a student who is doing the word look like and act like. For example, if a team is defining ‘respect,’ what does a respectful student do in class?
The teacher should offer a few suggestions to help the process percolate. For example, remind the students that we are all learners, including the teacher, and that we all have something important to share. They ought to consider how they should speak to each other, and that open and honest communication is vital to a community of learners. The students also should be encouraged to take academic risks and to think creatively.
Behaviors That Can Be Seen are Imperative
Each team should be given enough time to create a list of observable behaviors that indicate what the words on the board mean to them. Be sure to use traditional cooperative learning techniques in this activity.
Once the teams have generated the two lists of desirable student behaviors, write all of the indicators on the board under the two ‘absolute’ topic words. Ask the teams to give details about each concept and why they believe each is important. After the discussions, use a decision-making method such as simple voting to agree upon the final performance descriptors for each topic. As a side note, over the years the students have usually created more stringent standards for their own behavior than the teacher would have!
Put It in Writing!
Finally, take out a large sheet of paper, draw a line down the middle, and have the students write the two topic words and all of the behavioral descriptions under each so that there is a menu of acceptable behaviors. They can be as creative as they wish using different colors and funny icons and whatnot so long as the words make it to the paper. Once the list is completed, each student should sign the document, including the teacher, and it should be posted conspicuously in the classroom. The teacher should copy the list and send a copy home to the parents along with a description of how the students took responsibility for their own deportment.
Follow the Plan With Every Infraction
Then, during the year, if any student violates any standard, the teacher simply has to point to the guideline on the paper to correct the behavior. After a while, the students will pick up on this and start ‘policing’ each other’s inappropriate behavior as a violation of the trust that they have established among themselves.
Students know what is right and what is wrong. Trusting them as a team to do the right thing from the start just makes good sense!
