Starting afresh

Today I learn which classroom will be mine.  And I hope my official move-in will begin.

Will it be this room?

 

All my books and files, furniture and posters are packed and eagerly waiting in my garage to see which ones will be lucky enough to make the cut to go to my new school.  In two weeks, I’ll be teaching two new courses, so the cut will be severe, but I’m excited to begin working with somewhat new content and with a different population of students.

 

Or will it be this classroom?

 

As I have been sifting through my electronic files thinking about what to leave behind for the teacher who replaces me at this late summer date, I’ve noticed how much time I devote to community building at the beginning of the year.  Critics might suggest that I am ignoring my content for the first week or two, that I am not providing enough rigor at the outset.

But I disagree.

One thing I have learned over that past 16 years is that if teenagers are going to learn, if they are going to allow a teacher to push them, they have to have a certain level of comfort and familiarity at the outset.  Because things are going to get mighty uncomfortable later on.  And if I can’t connect with them and push them a bit now in an atmosphere of fun, it certainly won’t happen when they are far outside their comfort zones.

Below are a few of the activities I like to use during the first weeks of school.  They all help build community and help me understand the strengths and challenges of each student:

·         Kinesthetic Likert scale of intelligences- students line up according to their self-proclaimed intelligence in various activities, e.g. calming a crying infant, changing a tire, writing an essay, etc.  We follow with a discussion about multiple intelligences and school expectations and success.

·         Multiple Intelligence survey http://www.businessballs.com/howardgardnermultipleintelligences.htm#multiple intelligences tests

·         Myers-Briggs Personality Assessment  http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp  This activity is especially useful as we begin to craft arguments and audience.

·         Writer’s Notebook with safes (hand-drawn pictures of a safe with images of what each student values inside.  Great for writing ideas when drawing a blank later.)

·         Connections to music- which song or lyrics define parts of you?  Why?

·         Pictionary about hobbies, challenges, summer successes, and activities.

·         Socratic Seminar about topics in the news.

Each of these activities builds community and also serves as a piece of informal formative assessment.  They all answer questions for me about students’ self-confidence, skills, ability to generate ideas and argument, as well as their speaking skills.

In the first couple of weeks, I also weave in my processes and classroom systems… more about them later.

How do you build community among your students during the first days and weeks of school?  What knowledge do  you gain and use later?