Cultivating a Positive Classroom Community

To develop a positive classroom climate, I will spend extensive time in the first week or two
making efforts to get to know students, and to foster a collegial environment where students feel
open to taking academic and interpersonal risks.

On the first day of school, we will do a number of non-academic activities with the intention of
developing a student-teacher rapport, but also with the intention of developing student-student
relationships.

To give you an idea of what this will look like, I’m going to share a loose collection of potential
activities we’ll do on the first day:

Activity 1:

As students arrive, I will smile and greet them and give them a handout with a brief survey along
with construction paper and markers to make name tents.

The following instructions will also be written on the board or on the overhead projector: Fill out
the survey and make a name tent. To make a name tent, just fold the construction paper in half
and use the marker I handed you to write your preferred name that you go by on both sides. If
you have time after doing both, use it to draw 3-4 images of things you’re interested in on the
name tent. If you’re having trouble coming up with ideas, use the survey for inspiration! You
have 15-20 minutes to do this. If you finish before time is up, turn and quietly talk to a neighbor
about what you drew, or about one of the questions from the survey which you thought was
particularly interesting. Don’t worry if you don’t finish in the allotted time. We’ll come back to this
later, as needed.

See Figure 1.1 below for the survey.

Give students 15 minutes.

Even if most people aren’t finished when time is up, have everyone gather in a central location
for a group picture where they hold their name tags near their faces, without covering them up
(typically at their neck, or at chest-level). Explain that the intention is to help me study so that I
can learn who everyone is quickly.

As time allows at the end of class, consider allowing students to finish working on the name
tents and surveys, but take these up before the bell rings.

Looking ahead/How information will be used:

I will make a spreadsheet based on the survey, the name tent pictures, and the photo and use
these to study the student names, backgrounds, and interests, with the intention of learning
everyone’s name and something about them by the second or third day. This is no small feat in
a school like Albemarle, in which you work with 140-160 students between all of your classes.

I will then make it a priority to have a conversation with at least two students each class period
about something that they wrote on the survey about an interest or family member or any other
notable response they gave.
I will also use the surveys to decorate the room [See Entrée 1] with something relevant to each
student so everybody has a place in the room. This could be a display of their name tent or
drawings after learning names. Going back to my classroom environment section, I will also
make a bulletin board available to students to contribute their own work: art, flyers, messages to
other students, or whatever, and use student projects to decorate the room.

I will also use books, movies, and show clips as part of lessons throughout the
year. This is an example of using a students’ cultural background in developing content that’s
relevant to them, their lives and backgrounds, while also keeping the lessons fresh.

I will also make a playlist of songs taken from the list and use it as part of a show and tell activity
at the end of class every Friday throughout the first semester where a student plays the song all
the way through and talks about why they picked it, what it means to them, where they first
heard it, who it makes them think of, what memories it brings up, how it makes them feel, and/or
what they think the song means. Students will have the floor to talk the entire time. If they don’t
want to talk, they don’t have to, but they do have to introduce the song, the artist, and one thing
about the song. I will limit time for this to five minutes a week, and think of this as a preferred
learning activity and a privilege that can be lost.

I will also reference student surveys when developing lessons on figures of speech when
looking for examples. When it comes time to actually do the figures of speech lesson, I will give
students the option to use their song from before or to pick a new one.

Why do this?

This activity is helpful for cultivating student and teacher relationships because it allows
students to tell me who they are, from their perspective, including everything from what their
name is to what their preferred pronouns are to what they like to do, to what they like to learn
about. This is important because it tells students that it is a new year, that it is a blank slate, that
I care about them and that I want to get to know more about them in an effort to help them learn.

The photo also reinforces my learning of student names and it is a shared activity outside the
normal realm of classroom activities. Obviously, knowing students’ names and making it clear
that I make efforts to learn names is a sign of respect for students.

Students also can use this opportunity to look around the room at what others are doing. If they
don’t know one another already, they can learn new things about others in the room, whether it
be names, mutual interests, or shared experiences. The more students see that they have
things in common with one another, the more likely they are to invest in the group and to invest
in learning, especially if others are invested in this.

Using content that you know students like creates buy-in, makes studying it a bit more
interesting, and makes it a bit easier to study literary concepts because the content is already
something you know they engage with. While I may not have the class watch the whole movie
or read the whole book, I can use examples from these to inform my creation of lessons. I will
also take student surveys as an opportunity to find new books or authors, and invest time in
reading student suggestions. The same goes for movies, watching a specific movie or director
or learning more about a specific artist that I may not have heard of before.

Activity 2 & 3:
After time is up on the survey and nametags, the group will transition into getting to know you
activities. I will introduce myself and give a five minute biography before guiding students in an
activity called “get to know you roulette.”

As part of “get to know you roulette,” I will have a string of thought-provoking questions
projected on the overhead screen and students will stand in an inner circle and an outer circle in
pairs. If there’s an odd number, I will join in. If not, I will supervise and time. After 2 minutes is
up (per question), students in the outer circle will rotate one place and begin answering the
second question with their new partner.

When the activity starts, students will take turns introducing themselves before each answering
the question in 1 minute or less (so they take 2 minutes total, but you can adapt this if it seems
like that’s too much time). This should take about 20 minutes.

See Figure 1.2 for the PowerPoint/Getting to know you questions:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1zucLvW_rKpTLLhRgtK1gMDb4f_AyaY1H/edit#slide=id
.p20

As soon as the timer dings on the last round of questions, transition into “get to know you
BINGO.”

To do this, I will hand a stack of BINGO sheets to one student and instruct the class to take one
and pass it on. They should now be seated, but in one big circle.

I’ll explain: Get to know you BINGO is simple. The game is very much like actual BINGO, except
it’s up to you to discover clues by walking up to others and initiating conversations, asking if
your classmates have something in common with you. When two students find something in
common, they both can mark that box with an “x,” while initialing the other person’s box. The
first person to get five in a row wins. You can go up, down, side to side, or diagonal in either
direction. Everyone gets a freeby in the middle.

There’s one catch: Each “x” must come from a different person. You can’t repeat a person, and
you can’t compare notes with a classmate to learn about other people. You must have a
conversation with that person for the “x” to count. Once someone has five in a row, they should
raise their hand, wait for me to acknowledge them, show it to me, and I’ll confirm with others
that you spoke with them and that you have that thing in common. Ready, go.

I will play along with students, being mindful of the time, and slow up if I’m close to finishing
early in the timer. I will give a maximum of 10 minutes for students to move throughout the room
and collect “x’s.” Presumably, someone will get BINGO before the time is up. If nobody wins by
that time, go ahead and collect enough “x’s” to win just to move class along.

When someone wins, I will briefly go over the answers aloud of the person who won, and then
have students explain by a show of hands if they’ve ever done the activity in each box (20
boxes in all...a variation on this would be to pick items at random until at least everybody has
had a chance to raise their hand).

See Figure 1.3 below for the BINGO board:

Why do this?
This is good for cultivating student-to-student relationships. Even if students know one another
already, the games’ formats allow lesser known facts about students to come out. This gives
students an opportunity to express something about themselves that they may not have shared
before. At the very least, students get a chance to learn names, and learn something about
everyone in the room. This is also a more explicit effort to do this than the name tent/survey
activity.

This is good for cultivating student-teacher relationships as well because I am participating in

the games too, being selectively vulnerable by telling details about myself that students might
find interesting, while also learning details about students that I can use in future conversations.

Such games also create a fun environment in which students are engaged while lowering
boundaries between students and facilitating students’ forming new friendships and recognizing
commonalities with one another.

Such activities might also serve to lower inhibitions and make people feel less uncomfortable
around others, while also making it clear that in the proper context, it’s o.k. to be goofy in the
classroom. This also carries over into the idea of creating a classroom culture where everyone
feels comfortable being themselves and taking risks, and in turn can lead to students being
more willing to take intellectual and social risks, because they aren’t afraid of embarrassing
themselves.

What else?

In addition, we will vary the types of academic activities we do throughout the school year,
sometimes working alone, sometimes working in pairs, sometimes working in small groups, and
sometimes working together as a class [See entrée 1]. We will vary the makeup of the groups
that students work in so that students get the opportunity to work with a wide variety of peers
(and not the same friends over and over again). These group activities will be formative
assessments so students don’t have to worry about how the activity will impact their grade and
they can focus on the activity at hand. I will sometimes scaffold groups based on ability levels,
sometimes using base groups, sometimes using heterogeneous assigned groupings,
sometimes using homogeneous assigned groupings, and sometimes allowing students to self-
select groups. This way students will get to know one another and maintain relationships with
everyone else in the class throughout the school year.

I will also create base groups based on survey results so that students have a group of people
that they get to know well and feel comfortable with. This will increase student participation in
group activities, and willingness to take risks. I will monitor the groups as the year progresses,
and if behavioral issues arise, I will create new base groups every so often, so as not to single
any one student out, while also addressing the issue. Switching up groups every so often also
allows students to get to know more people who they were not previously familiar with.

Students will otherwise have time each day to check in with one another, and as a group, we
will check in on one another, so that everyone becomes invested in the well-being of their fellow
classmates.

For my part, I will do my best to model a positive, caring environment, by expressing care and
concern for every student. I will expect my students to treat one another with similar care and
respect throughout the school year, as explained in my Classroom Expectations/Responding to
Misbehavior section [See entrée 3].

If the classroom community ever seems threatened by misbehavior or conflict that cannot be
corrected by using least invasive interventions, I will enact my plans to institute a whole class
reset in which students take time to consider the existing norms and take the time to develop
new norms which they can all consent to. The rationale is to increase student autonomy while
also helping them to consider the purpose of the norms and expectations so that they will
become more invested in the classroom community.
FIGURE 1.1—STUDENT SURVEY
(adapted from Doubet & Hockett, p. 13)

My name is ______________________________ but my preferred name is

______________________________.

I use the following pronouns (circle one): he/she/they/other:___________.

FACTS:
-Favorite food: -Favorite band:
-Life goals: -Spirit animal:
-Dream vacation: -Biggest fear:
-Favorite movie and why: -What is something you are proud of:

-Favorite tv show and why: -Favorite book and why:

Tell me about you:

What do you like to do in your free time when you aren’t in school? Include any hobbies.

Do you have any siblings?

Do you speak any languages other than English?

Is there anything that you would like me to know about the way you like to learn?

Is there anything about yourself that you would like me to know?

What’s something you would like to know about me or about this class?

Theme Song:
Think about music you like and choose one song to be your “anthem.” Make sure that the song
represents you!

Song Title: Lyrics that most represent you:

Artist: Explanation:
FIGURE 1.3—Getting to Know You BINGO

Find a person Find someone Make up a Have someone Share a secret

who plays the who has the secret make a talent with
same instrument same number of handshake with book/movie/grap someone
as you siblings as you someone hic novel
recommendation
and give them
your own

Tell someone a Find someone Share five things Find someone Find someone
short family story who plays the that you are who work up who has lived
and listen to same sport as grateful for with before 6 a.m. outside of
theirs you do and tell someone today Virginia
them your
favorite player or
position to play

Find someone Sing a line of a Free Space Share a list of Find someone
who has the favorite song to your three who has the
same favorite someone who favorite same favorite
movie as you you aren’t musicians/bands type of candy as
already close and have you
friends with someone tell you
about theirs

Draw a picture of Show someone Find someone Make a pinky Find someone
your room and your best animal who has a fear promise with who has gone to
explain it to impression in common with someone summer camp
someone you and have them
tell you about
their favorite or
least favorite
part.

Have someone Play paper-rock- Find someone Tell someone a Cats or dogs?
share their scissors with who has the joke (keep it Find someone
favorite stretch. someone and same favorite school- who disagrees
Share yours with win 2 out of 3 food as you appropriate) with you and try
them. games to convince them
why you’re right