Creating a Classroom Culture for Learning: We Make the Weather

We Make the Weather

I wake up and the house is freezing again.  No hot water for a shower, I quickly wash my face and brush my teeth.  I grab the muesli and open the fridge...no milk.  I don’t have time to make some toast so I grab my bag and walk to the bus stop.  The bus is completely full when it arrives, and the bus driver is refusing to let me on.  I have to walk to school and it's raining.  

Hungry and wet my mood can only get better, right? - wrong!  Despite running to school to ensure I am on time, I am greeted by my miserable Language and Literature teacher Mr Mark.  He looks annoyed and he simply tells me to sit down and quickly get my book out.  What a …………….!  I don’t feel like learning.  What a miserable day.

Rewind

Hungry and wet my mood can only get better, right? - right!  I have Mr Mark period 1.  He smiles at me as I approach the class, and asks me if I am OK.  I can’t help but smile back and say Yes, because I am starting to feel better, the smile remains on my face as I unpack my bag and get ready to start learning.  The day is suddenly starting to brighten up.

The Weather-Makers

A teacher has the ability to create the weather within his/her classroom. Each classroom is capable of having its own ecosystem similar to that of a biosphere.  The climate is controlled by the teacher through her/his interactions with the students.  

One of the simplest strategies you can do as a teacher to improve the chance of good weather is to meet and greet students at the classroom door with a smile; as students cross the threshold into your classroom, you have the ability to influence their mood and potentially their mindset for learning.

If we accept that smiling is infectious, or what is scientifically referred to as mood contagion, then by simply getting students to smile, whether the responsive smile is fake or not, can positively influence their mood according to research.1  This is sometimes called the feedback loop.  When we smile there is a positive feedback to the brain giving us a feeling of joy.

But why stop with just a smile...below are some strategies to try when meeting and greeting students along with your best smile:

Mark, Smile, Whisper

When marking books, identify some parts of students work to remark upon as they enter the class. This is especially powerful in giving confidence, and building a positive mindset towards learning for those students who rarely expect to receive such comments.  Something as simple as whispering: “Ramla, I really liked the headline you created for your newspaper article, well done”, can make the world of difference to a student’s attitude to learning.

Open Door, Open Minds

Get students thinking immediately on entry by placing thinking material in their hand.  This also helps to ensure students are settled and working from the start; minimising opportunities for disruption. Strategies such as:

i)  Giving students a  newspaper headline and asking them to think what the story might be about.  

ii) Asking students to think about questions they would like to ask the photographer of an image you have given them.  

iii) Giving students a debatable/controversial question to think about:

“Teachers have lost our respect due to their inability to become learners.  How can it be that students are the greater authority on technology than teachers”.  Discuss.

Smile, Welcome, Read

Some schools English departments enforce quiet reading for the first 10 minutes of every English lesson with a remit to deviate from this approach now again for something exciting.  Students can read any book of their own choice.   

Maintaining the Climate

The meet and greet strategy is also an opportunity to identify bad weather fronts that could come in at a moments notice.  You may notice that Signe is quieter than usual on entry, or that Eric has his angry look going on, or that you hear Devine and Alice talking negatively about another student in the class on the corridor before entering the classroom..  All these pieces of information are indicators of potential bad weather.  Knowing about these hazards often means we can avoid them.  No teachers enjoys a thunder storm occurring in the middle of a lesson.   Observing the students on entry and their reactions to you, can often tell you something about how they are feeling.  This will often allow you to adapt your interactions to ensure the good weather is maintained.  

Spread the Good Weather

Smile and say goodbye to students, they may just take this positive outlook to their next lesson.

__________________

1. Tara Kraft and Sarah Pressman. Grin and Bear It: The Influence of Manipulated Positive Facial Expression on the Stress Response. Psychological Science, 2012 (in press)

 

Creating a Classroom Culture for Learning - A default seating plan

3 Classroom Seating Strategies that Work

A teacher’s best laid plans can often fall foul to mischief if there is a failure to think carefully about seating arrangements.   Who should sit where and next to whom? Whilst such arrangements should never be a permanent fixture, there should be a default seating plan, designed to get the most out of students.  

Many schools operate a system where it is the teacher that moves from class to class rather than the students.  A default seating plan should be discussed by all teachers in order to limit the movement of students each lesson.  However, let me make it clear that I am not talking about a seating arrangement for all lessons, rather a seating arrangement for most lessons, and that this default seating arrangement should be reviewed regularly by all teachers involved in the class.

A teacher’s mindset is central to ensuring that seating arrangements promote learning on a variety of fronts. It is important that teachers view themselves primarily as teachers of students rather than as teachers of a subject.  This mindset often feeds a motivation to develop the whole child rather than focusing just on the knowledge and skills to be assessed.  The IB MYP places such a mindset at the heart of its curriculum.  It is a must rather than an optional expectation, or even a distant hope. Something as simple as the seating arrangements of students in a classroom can help promote such a holistic approach to education.

The scenario presented below is perhaps an experience many of us can identify with:

Picture it…. First day of term - you arrive at your Grade 7 class.   Tables are arranged in Squares or L shapes to allow for collaborative learning. Good start you think, and then you look at the seating arrangements ...

The Norwegian girls are on table 1

The English cohort are on table 5

The Middle-Eastern boys are on table 2

The Black Caribbean boys are on table 3

And the remaining girls are on table 4

To leave the seating arrangements as they are, would, in my opinion, conflict with the very essence of what it means to be a teacher.  Whilst, I might be stating the obvious to many, year on year I have seen the acceptance of such seating arrangements by some classroom teachers. What message are we sending out to our students by not taking action to change these seating arrangements?  Are we reinforcing undesirable and counter acceptance values?

Below are three strategies to try at the start of each year to help promote a positive learning culture:

Strategy 1: Stick and Carrot Approach

The teacher creates the seating plan for the students based on existing knowledge of the students ensuring that undesirable groupings by gender and/or ethnicity do not occur.  Students are given a promise that for every term they positively embrace the teacher’s seating arrangements they will be allowed ½ a term to sit in the seats of their choice.  

Strategy 2:  The Illusion of Choice

Students are given 5 minutes at the start of a lesson to arrange their seating based on a set criteria.  For example, on your table there must be:

• Two different nationalities
• A minimum of one girl
• Each table must have a student from Norway

The seating specification should be designed to support diversity, and maximise learning by separating students who have the ability to disrupt one another without actually telling them to move.  This can be a powerful tool when reminding students that they chose the seat - should they be straying off task.  It eradicates the resentment sometimes felt by students when they are moved initially to a seat they don’t want to sit in when challenged.  With this approach, the student (apparently) made the decision.

Strategy 3: Self/Peer Assessed Seating Arrangements

Ask students to sit where they will learn the most.   Use De Bono’s Thinking Hats or something similar to get students to reflect on their own seating arrangements and that of another table.  Students should then provide feedback.   Then, again ask students to sit where they will learn the most. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Please remember that most strategies become ineffective without timely and appropriate action should students not maintain a positive focus on learning.

Creating a Classroom Culture for Learning. The L Shape - Classroom Table Layout

The L Shape (Secondary/MYP)

 

Often overlooked but vital to learning in the classroom, the layout of student tables can help create a  positive learning culture.  Unfortunately, table layout is sometimes organised to suit the needs of the teacher rather than the students - with the focus on control rather than learning.  It is still common to find classroom tables organised in the same fashion as those over half a century ago; in rows.  

Whilst the use of rows has its purpose, especially when expecting students to complete individual assessments in examination conditions, it is therwise an inflexible layout that serves mostly to ensure classroom control.  Some teachers may argue that to engage students in group work, you can simply ask students to turn around, but with such layouts, my worry is that: collaborative opportunities for students are the exception rather than the norm; the longer the transition between activities, the increased likelihood for students to lose focus; and some students will have their back to the teacher throughout the activity.

It is this teacher’s opinion that the classroom layout usually reflects the teaching norm in a classroom.  Therefore, If teachers are assigned their own classroom, a worthwhile exercise for school leaders is to walk through the school during the first week of term to check out the layout chosen by teachers.  Of course, sometimes the shape and/or size of the room may limit the range of possibilities, but the classroom layout may be an early indicator as to the type of teaching and learning experience that is most likely to occur on a regular basis.  Additionally, as a training exercise for trainee teachers, requesting trainees to walk through the school and report back on the various classroom layouts seen, with feedback as to the purpose of the layout, is an excellent introductory exercise that prompts an interesting discussion amongst the trainees.  

The need for a standard classroom table layout design which serves the students best interests whilst appeasing some teachers’ needs for using the classroom as a control mechanism is essential  This is especially vital in school environments where it is the teacher rather than the student that moves from classroom to classroom.  If we were to suppose that teaching strategies will inevitably conform to suit the classroom design rather than the other way around, then a multifunctional and simple layout is necessary.   Neither the horseshoe nor the square table layout are as effective as the L shape for meeting most needs in the classroom.

The L shape allows students to engage in individual, paired and group work without ever having to change position allowing for slick transitions between activities.  Students are facing the teacher at all times helping to appease those teachers who wish to use the layout for control.  If we accept that transferable skills such as communication and collaboration are vital to a future, global workforce, then such a layout serves to promote these skills.  

The L shape is an effective de-facto table layout for most classrooms.