Phases of developing a classroom community

Phases? Stages? Steps	What it might look like	What might help
Setting up the community	Students get to know each other. The class agrees the rules of the community An inclusive and safe environment. The community shares a common purpose. Students get used to working with  different people.	A conducive physical environment Establishing routines and rituals. The what great learners do procedure. Team building tasks. Teachers facilitate agreements of rules. Teachers make clear the academic, social and character values that they helps the whole community. A variety of seating plans is used by the teacher
Develop the cooperation within the group.	Students are motivated to contribute. Students work together on common tasks. Students given some responsibility Students allwoed to fail safely .	Opportunities to reflect together eg circle time. Tasks are designed so that all can contribute. Teacher debriefs the skills of co-opertaion, communication and values of fairness and kindness. Non Judgemental feedback. Praise good teamworking, sharing etc
Develop Trust	The class celebrates together. Students seek feedback from one another. Students speculate. Students are confident enough to disagree Students engage in adult to adult conversations Students feel they have a say in proceedings.	Non judgemental feedback. Praise individual contributes. Praise reciprocity. Students are taught how to divide tasks into roles. Knowing about transactional analysis. Critique protocols Kind, Specific and Helpful. Feedback on student to student feedback. Establish a No put down ZOne Teachers share some intellectual control. Eg Offers choice
Develop Collaboration skills	Students take different roles to complete larger tasks. Students consider the quality of collaboration Students provide formal and informal feedback and help to one another. Students publicly show their academic knowledge along side their skills and attributes.	Co-construction of success criteria Teacher modelling of skills Increasing the sophistication of the tasks. Use of Rubrics Use of authentic/ wider community tasks. Project exhibitions
Maintain and Repair  the community	Students document progress on collaboration and communication skills. Teachers and students honest about challenges faced. roup reflection - Circle time Quiet individual reflection Community dwells on solutions rather than problems	Debrief the process regularly. Provide non judgemental feedback Team Building tasks Target  setting for skills and attributes Time The option to pass Teacher takes role of a coach.

Teachmeet CLV Festival 2014

Establishing a classroom community.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Establishing, is the wrong word, why build something to let then crumble?


The idea of having an activity at the beginning of the year to build a classroom community (e.g find someone who ....can juggle) is described by Kathy Greely as lame. How is this going to affect the people leaving our classrooms, how will it affect their academic success? The solution is not to think in terms of only establishing a classroom community, but how to maintain and strengthen it.


I have been increasingly concerned over one of my classes of late, it is a class that has a few disaffected students whose behaviour has had to be managed. I'm not adverse to a bit of behaviour management, but in terms of affecting student learning, I'd rather focus my energies elsewhere. I must admit I've had to work hard to establish the basic behaviours in this class. However, a few months after I started writing this post I am seeing a wonderful improvement not only in behaviour, but how they are with one another and how they approach their studies. I'm really pleased for them,

So what did I do to improve the situation. On reflection  the following strategies have been most helpful, in no particular order they are:

1. What good learners do? Agree it, refer to it, amend it. I do this with every class at the start of the year, but the craft is then to use it regularly, when things are going well and when things are not going so well. I'd say this is possibly the central pillar to my classroom practise.

2. Changing groups. Regularly, with the clear stated purpose of we work with everyone in our community, We can learn from and help everyone else learn. The consistency of this approach is key, and not being tempted by groupings that appear to work.

3.Learning intentions, be explicit. Make aspects of how you want students to be as part of lesson success criteria, whether it's a learner attribute or how they are as part of the community.

4. Show how it happens in your organisation. How do the adults do it. We are very fortunate to have glass walls in the offices and work areas so students get to see how the staff interact. However, they are oblivious to this unless it is pointed out to them.

5. Maintain a no put down zone. Vigorously defend each students to make mistakes safely in public, without fear of someone ridiculing them. Praise effort and thank students for their ideas, and use them as useful start points to teaching.

5. Public critique and public exhibition. This is based upon the previous one. However, I think these are an ideal place to strengthen the community. Be sure always to use the Feedback norms, in every session. Inviting outside visitor in to see student work communicates in no uncertain terms that what the students are learning is important beyond their classrooms

6. Refer to the students locality. Establishing a sense of pride of the school and the wider location is good way to help students feel connected to where they are from. This can be a big motivator. I often frame projects to do this.

7. Debrief and feedback. White hat feedback is best as it's non judgemental. This places the responsibility back with the students.  Photographs, quotes, tally, contribution pie charts are all recommended to help do this. I have found these cards helpful in making very clear how I expect the students to act.

8. Establish Quality Criteria for the behaviours that you want, the nature of establishing and agreeing these is in itself useful in developing the community you want. Although these are done by negotiation (and rightly so) they have the huge benefit of having sophisticated behaviours in child friendly language.

What are critiques for?

Besides improving the quality of student work,being  an opportunity to check (real) progress, reflect upon next steps, and being an opportunity to teach critical ideas to an  audience of engaged students. What is the point of these time consuming assessment tasks?

For me, and for academic success, it's cultural. It's part of how classroom should be to help learning take place.

It's easy to empathise with the novice student who is about to "volunteer" their work for a whole class critique. To them it is a risk to be taken, nominally through the fear of being judged, but also by being aware of the haphazard nature of "peer assessment". The "add more detail" comments adding confusion, instead of clarity only decreasing the merit in taking the risk. However, it must be remembered that if a piece of work is worthy of critique, it will (or should) display the complexity of that students learning. We need to revel in this.

The classroom community is the grease that makes critiques work. This is why we have the protocols, to help manage the risk. Although simply written, these contain several cultural devices which are important in ensuring critiques work for the classroom community.

The first of these is in beginning the critique by seeking "kind, positive or  warm feedback" , obviously important for making people feel that their work is appreciated. Although the big reason for this goes way beyond this simple aim. It's more about looking at the work in an open minded way, finding what works, as well as what has not. Both the strengths and the weaknesses are useful. It is at this point that the critique becomes more about every students work, than it does about the individual work being scrutinised. By highlighting the strengths, students learn what quality work is like, and by teachers endorsing and interpreting these views we provide models of quality that students can then emulate.

This focus also, evinces the value of working with others, showing the dialetic nature of learning. Individuals benefit from the input from their community, but also the individuals can be benefit to their community.

This is why, as teachers we need to teach the procedural knowledge involved in taking part in a critique and offering feedback. We do this by modelling it in our own feedback, being metacognitive during critiques and providing feedback on the feedback being given. It teaches how to speak in a learning community:with respect, tolerance. compassion and focus on high academic standards.

Both students and teachers too often make judgements of others on a superficial basis. How much do we really know about each others strengths and expertise? Do we value these and make it part of our culture? Sometimes, as teachers we do need to prioritise our classroom community before we can address the academic and skills needs of our students. This is a start point.

The final aspect  is more permeating. Critiques should lead to the process of critique becoming less formal. By this I mean it becomes part of how the community speaks to one another and these conversations becomes ubiquitous.  Where students not only offer feedback to peers but actively seek it. They view each others work and offer praise and then suggest ways to improve it without prompt or scaffold. It's how we are as people.  This is the ultimate aim of critiques.

What can High Tech High tell us about learning communities?

The opening images in this 14 minute video show the interactive , installation art which is striking . Beyond that they are normal, normal in a ubiquitous sense. It's everywhere.

Larry Rosenstock's opening lines about "ignoring certain axioms" is equally stark. Identifying the current segregation's in education that are taken as normal and actively creating a school that serves and is part of community it represents should be a central to education. These two quotes clearly shows this thinking.

"Public education is the only institution designated and funded as the agent of the  larger society in protecting the core value of its citizens:democracy" Glickman

"What we teach and how we teach it- both directly , in terms of our academic curriculum , and indirectly, in terms of the social curriculum we model- should reinforce our social ideals and values"  Kathy Greely 


The public display and exhibition with family members and local experts are key tenets of this approach. The choice of ART as another is no accident either.

"Art communicates to everyone " Jeff Robin
"People make art to communicate....." George Lucas

It makes the "tool" approach (enabling students to make things that demonstrate to people what has been learned) vital. Projects do this. 

This video really highlights the quantity of high quality work that you'd want to display, and the painstaking curation of the work, the 40,000sq foot of  area is just the start.

Again Greely sums this up 
" The culture of the whole school- in the classroom, in the hallway, on the playground, in the cafeteria, on the bus- should reflect and reinforce what we strive for: respect, tolerance, hard work, informed literacy and critical thinking."  

At High Tech High they go beyond the schools and into the wider community with work displayed at local art galleries, used at other schools and on global projects such as the Bushmeet project. Although my favourite, is the story of Mathew Moss School in Rochdale where students stepped into the breech to direct traffic. Which exemplifies Rosenstocks quote from Thomas Jefferson

 " The purpose of public education isn’t to serve a public but to make a public".
 In fact he sees in very concrete terms 

"Consider the class as a fulcrum for the community." 


The students concur and see themselves as part of the community.

"[Robots], gives us a role in the community." 

It is very evident at HTH, with the public exhibition, through critique and through the places the student work ends up. It is clear  that this is THE pedagogy for student motivation and learning.

"Beautiful work and curation, benefit of looking the work together and considering where to go next, to get better."


Although HTH systematically sends their students around the world, as " they would only go yo university as far as they had travelled", take for example Jay Vavra's Bushmeat project, which develops global citizens. Although, it's also the projects that connect students to their own community, giving them a sense of place that make a big difference. The long running San Diego Bay project is a great example of this. This is the inspiration behind "Wild about Cramlington" Project (more detail here and here ) Several of the students freely using the word pride in what they have on their doorsteps. We found a similar, positive feeling to their locality in the "Call of the Wild". 


The accretion of this culture leads to the "reverse peer effect", where success and working at a consistent high level becomes normal.

"You can study the WORLD through just about anything"  


This is not learning for learnings sake (although this would be most luxuriant), the learning is purposeful and professional. Allowing the students to sample the adult world in a safe junior version (a la David Perkins).

"What is adolescence but on try on new roles and trying on new identities?"


"Make work that work matters, that has a lasting impact."


The skills of an adult are explicitly taught, especially in the middle schools. The Critical Skills approach is visible and used, As well as structures and protocols, a large amount of trust and responsibility is needed. Students need to learn this, and learn to trust one another. This has to be "on the curriculum". Incidentally and wonderfully the tag line on the Critical Skills blog is 

" Within a community anything is possible, without one nothing is".

The integrated nature of the knowledge that comes from their projects, is how knowledge is actually used.

"It's in an adult mileu they have reason, it gets there attention so you can then pack in the biology etc"


This point is more or less made by this exultation of design thinking. It's what projects allow you to do.




Summary

All of the following are easier and more effective using project based learning.

Beautiful work not only deserves to be displayed but needs to displayed. 

Curation is a big part of a teachers job.

The best projects not only present their findings to their community,but, help connect the students to where they are.

Consider how the project can involve the community and how it can impact upon the community.

Peer culture can be manipulated through display, building and maintaining classroom communities and sharing " an ethic of excellence".

Explicitly develop the adult skills that are need, for example use the Critical Skills approach. 

Speak and work with students as you would adults. 

Create safe environment for students to take risk, don't be averse to creating junior versions of the real world.

Project Based Learning -Avoiding the Content Trap

I've made a mistake. I knew I would. I have been drawn into the content trap, again.

"We can build projects that engage students in their cultural roots and yet are academic projects to the core." Ron Berger.

I always start projects with the best of intentions of balancing  content and the skills and attributes, that's why I value projects. Projects can help build that classroom community so vividly described in Ron Bergers work, but buidling community takes time. Time, that in the heat of the moment seems too short to "fit" all the content, that culminate in the ever eating thoughst of " I'll just give them  more minutes to finish this task", and "they need to know this....." Content is dominating.

"My ethic of excellence runs deep, we care for where we live, the people here, not just our academic skills" Ron Berger.

The result is evident in our class blog. Barely any student reflection, student work, resources , class discusion are all there, but the time for all of us to take stock and value one another is missing. So far only two out of the three classes doing this project have had a whole classs discussion about how they are getting on. Even these were sparse in their conversations. Most of the reflection has been on a one to one basis and fleeting. I've made no time for our community. In fact, the class that have not had a whole class discussion are the class that need it the most. It's time we got back to what makes us good people and what good learning communities do.

"Building and maintaining a positive community takes constant vigilance. It's a job that's never really done....." Ron Berger.

So here's the plan.

The next lesson for all classes will start with a simple round robin discussion. Each student will be given one of these questions and a moment to compose a response. All responses will be accepted. Using a round robin allows me not to run the conversation, students will be asked to jump in, piggy back on answers, and agree and disagree. They, the community, will lead the conversation.

The questions are unashamedly positive (only one or two ask for potential negatives), I'm hoping for a small celebration of us as people, of what we can be like. If this does not happen and students don't have examples of listening well to one another or  been trustful of one another then that's O.K too. This task will at the very least raise the profile and the desirability of these qualities. It prompts a need to be emulative. I'm hopeful that it will further strengthen our classroom community.

How have you shown trust to others?	Who has helped you the most during this project? Why?
Who has impressed you so far during this project? Why?	When did you listen to someone very well? How did you do it?
When has someone listened to you carefully during this project?	What are the strengths of your team?
What are the strengths of the people in this class?	Who in your team has worked hardest during this project so far?
How do you feel about the class blog show casing your project?	How do you feel about inviting people from home into see your projects?
Describe a time when someone has helped you during this project?	Describe a time when you have said Thank you to someone during this project?
Describe a time when you have complimented someone’s work during this project?	Describe a time when someone has complimented your work.
Describe how someone’s feedback has made your work better.	Describe when you have given feedback to someone.
Describe when someone has distracted you from your work.	Have you distracted someone from their work.
How have you motivated someone in your group?	How has someone motivated you?
How has negotiating help your project?	How has critique helped your project?
How have you shared the responsibility during this project?	How have you made agreements as a team?
How have you discussed your project as an “adult” would?	What talents have the people in your team brought to the project?

UPDATE

Here is a recording showing these questions in use, although no discussion took place each student contributed in a sophisticated and positive way.I think the culture of this class is evident lets hope it shows and develops with  all  classes.

20 Berger Quotes around Culture- Some food for thought.

I've been pondering what I would like school/ education to be like for my son and my students. For me the culture of education seems like the place to start. Although I don't believe one person has all the answers I believe the vision of Ron Berger  of Expeditionary Learning. encapsulates what can be right about the culture of learning. Here are some quotes in no particular order, that have made me think.


We built our curriculum around connecting our students to the outside world.

Not many would trust students to carry out original research.

This is the process that adult professionals go through (when designing), they go through a lot of drafts, get lots of critiques and its public.

The best way to motivate people, for them to bust their guts , is to have a reason for doing something , where they are creating something to be proud of.

Accountability stops being on page 32 of a text book and becomes about the kind of quality of the work that your kids are doing, and the kind of people that they are AND their test scores.

We can build projects that engage students in their cultural roots and yet are academic projects to the core.

There's no magic bullet towards excellence , it's all cultural, and by building a culture within the our schools where our kids feel pressured to do good work and be good people, we succeed.

The peer community sets the tone on how to be.It sets positive peer pressure.

What makes our school culturally clear is that every older child is paired with a younger child, to help them read ,get their boots on and to ride the bus with them.

My ethic of excellence runs deep, we care for where we live, the people here, not just our academic skills.

It's a long term commitment. It's a way of life.

Schools cultures that support excellence can look very different.

My personal passion is a culture built around beautiful student work.

Self esteem from accomplishments, not compliments.

Building and maintaining a positive community takes constant vigilance. It's a job that's never really done.....

The power of the (school) culture rests in community.

School culture must extend beyond the school walls.

Imagine a school in which to be cool, to fit in and be regarded as popular, you have to do quality work and treat others well.

What goes on in the hallways is as important as what goes on in the classroom.

A school culture of quality connotes a culture of high standards for all students in all domains.