How to Build Community in the Classroom
A classroom consists of a diverse group of students with unique individual needs, strengths, abilities and interests. Along with teaching academics, another important job of educators is to foster the growth of a positive community within the classroom. A healthy classroom community can teach students about social skills and developing strong character traits. Building a sense of community in a classroom is a process that takes time, purposeful planning, and effort. Creating a healthy community within your classroom will make your class and school a more positive environment.
Instructions
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Assign projects that the students must complete within groups. Learning to work together, sharing resources, planning, creating and depending on each other will strengthen their sense of community.
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Discuss what type of community the students would like to have within their classroom. Create a poster that outlines aspects of this community. Involving students in creating ideals for their classroom will increase the likelihood of their involvement in generating and maintaining this type of community. Placing the poster in a visible place within the room allows you to refer to the community ideals often, which reinforces the concept.
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Play educational games in which students must be part of a team. Working as a team, as well as experiencing victory and loss together, bonds your students.
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Reward behavior that demonstrates positive community ideals. For instance, if a student is "caught" being kind to another student, offer praise or a special privilege. Give consequences for behaviors that violate classroom community ideals. For example, if a student is making fun of another student, you might have a consequence that the violator must spend his recess writing a note of apology.
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Encourage special times where class members share about their own experiences and ideas. Model positive behaviors such as listening attentively and encouraging students as they share. Listening to each other and sharing personal stories can help the students bond.
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Assign "buddies" to new students who arrive at school. Having one or two classmates who help a new student to learn the details about life at your school will make the new person's assimilation into the classroom community easier.
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Assist your students in creating a class song, poster or poem. When your students work together creatively to form something that represents their class, they learn to take pride in their classroom community.
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Organize activities that involve parents and families of students as well. Having a class party or outing in which students' families attend can help to build and expand the concept of community even more extensively.
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References
- Photo Credit Katy McDonnell/Digital Vision/Getty Images
