Community building

To help create a caring classroom community, the CDP asked teachers to address students’ need for belonging by conducting a number of structured activities to help both students and teacher get to know and care about one another. To help meet students’ need for autonomy, CDP encouraged teachers to conduct regular class meetings and provide students with opportunities for self-regulation as well as choice in their academic activities. In addition to building a caring, moral community, all of the videos below show classroom activities that support the Common core standards in that they will eventually enable “all students to participate in real, substantive discussions that require them to respond directly to the ideas of their peers.”

To support the building of a caring community, the CDP staff created the following resources Among Friends: Classrooms Where Caring and Learning Prevail and Ways We Want Our Class to Be: Class meetings that Build Commitment to Kindness and Learning  both of which are available for sale at Collaborative Classroom.

Note: The Child Development Project (CDP) is now named the Caring School Community, a program of Collaborative Classroom.

Autonomy and Choice in Curriculum. This video shows a bilingual classroom where students are given an opportunity to choose what they would like to study in science. Using partner and small group activities, the students practice brainstorming skills, consensus-building and collaborative decision-making. (Joy Pelton)
I always used this video. It opens with questions for the students to consider: How do you want your class to be? What do you want included in your classroom? And so on. We are invited to experience just how a teacher begins to create classroom community and to build consensus among the students.
During an all-day orientation to the teacher preparation program, CSUS teacher credential candidates participate in a community building activity in which they share an artifact that represents their past, present, and future. Then, I show the DSC video: Talking Artifacts.
This video shows two of the purposes for a class meeting: problem-solving and checking-in. The same class of students shown in the "September" video comes together for a class meeting in January. The purpose of the meeting is to reflect on how well the class is achieving the values and goals for how they will treat each other that they set in September.
This video shows two of the purposes for a class meeting: problem-solving and checking-in. The same class of students shown in the "September" video comes together for a class meeting in January. The purpose of the meeting is to reflect on how well the class is achieving the values and goals for how they will treat each other that they set in September.
Class Meeting Example for a Primary Grade. This video shows how even Kindergartners can participate meaningfully in a class meeting. It is easy to imagine older students thoughtfully contributing to a discussion, but in this video, very young students are encouraged to articulate challenges and solutions to getting along in the classroom.