Establishing and maintaining a strong classroom culture is vital to the health of your PBL/PrBL practice. This should include proactive student supports for social and emotional development, building relational trust, being improvement-oriented, learning-focused, and developing agency. The resources below are for teachers to consider what kinds of classroom culture plan you will use to support building culture at the beginning of the year and to maintain strong culture throughout the year.
Step 1. Develop a culture plan for your classroom
It is important to think about and take time to have a long term culture plan for the classroom and the year. Use the Culture Practices Card Set to help plan what practices will be built into the daily and weekly routine of the classroom, then build that plan using the NTN Culture Planning Tool Template linked below.
Examples:
|
Elementary |
Start off morning circles, reinforce SEL during the day Use this NTN Classroom Culture Planning Tool and Checklist to help plan.
|
|
Middle |
Start off daily or weekly Community Circles with opportunities to connect and reflect in every class period with moments of mindfulness planned over the week. Use this NTN Classroom Culture Planning Tool and Checklist to help plan.
|
|
High School |
Start off daily or weekly Community Circles and mindfulness with opportunities to connect and reflect in every class period. Use this NTN Classroom Culture Planning Tool and Checklist to help plan. |
Step 2: Start off the year right
Some schools spend some time as a whole school at the beginning of the year school building culture and orienting students. Use the resource below to see some examples or helpful activities for Orientation. (click image)
*NTN recommends that teachers infuse a focus on culture and any needed introduction to PBL into their first project.
|
Elementary Culture |
A Space for Mindfulness: Students will learn about feelings and emotions in order to create a safe and welcoming classroom environment. Students will learn mindfulness strategies to help themselves and others manage their emotions. They will design mindfulness spaces in the classroom to ensure there are safe places and comforting items to allow for self-regulation and mindfulness. They will also learn what it means to be a community. Students will individually write a proposal for a school mindfulness space. The project will culminate with a tour for their families in which they will share their mindfulness spaces, strategies for managing their emotions, and ways they can contribute to a safe and welcoming community. |
|
Secondary Culture
|
Cold Cats and Hot Dogs:In this project, learners will work as teams to design a structure that either minimizes or maximizes thermal energy for dogs or cats that can be used by pet owners who are unable to house their pets indoors or by local animal shelters needing to expand their outdoor capacity during times of dangerous weather.
|
|
Story Behind the Monuments: Students will research and analyze the stories of the monuments, historical markers and publicly memorialized figures or moments in history found in their community/region. They’ll examine if the stories are accurate and from what perspective the stories are told. Students will compare the stories to what they learn in researching the history of their region/community (via primary and secondary sources). The project culminates with a proposal to the City Council/Arts Council/Parks & Rec./Historical Society. The proposal will provide an explanation of the story and perspective told by the current monuments, historical markers and publicly memorialized figures or moments in history and then propose a NEW monument that portrays the history from their community’s perspective. |
*Visit the NTN Curriculum Frameworks for more culture building projects. The first project in each framework is focused on building culture at the beginning of the school year.
Step 3: Build in culture promoting practices at the beginning of the year and throughout
Use the NTN Culture Practices Cards for support in building and maintaining a safe, inclusive and emotionally supportive culture in your classroom.
Comments
0 comments
Please sign in to leave a comment.