Our Class Norms Development Journey

The first week of the new calendar year, and the first of classes following a two week Winter Recess, provided a tremendous opportunity to reset classroom norms and expectations for the second half of the school year. On the Monday we returned, I began the process with my students, 110 total in five sections, of collecting feedback as a means of collaborating on expectations to which we (my students and I ) could both agree moving forward. While not an earth shattering revelation that this kind of norms development is a beneficial activity, it required some risk on both stakeholder' parts to share the information and allow for the sharing of different points of development. It did feel good to embrace the risk.

Due to our staggered instructional schedule, this was not a process that could easily be accomplished in one or two consecutive classes. I planned to keep every class at relatively the same steps in the development process so that each class, and therefore students, would have their opinion honored and included. This did create the additional challenge of keeping the activity, and ultimately its final product, relevant and timely. Students can have short attention spans and any activity which goes too long loses its freshness--a reality which holds true for this adult in the classroom too.

In total the process took about 90 minutes of class time over three 55 minutes classes and culminated with each of us agreeing to shared classroom norms.

Step 1
I began the first day of our return to school from break by sharing my own frustration with elements of the first half of the school year--much of which I confessed was the product of my own responses to behavior and class progress. I suggested to students that we could be successful moving forward and that the creation of expectations and norms to which we both could agree would help us to do this.

I asked students to first identify three qualities of "Good Teachers" and challenged them to also brainstorm observable behaviors that revealed the teacher's possession of that quality. Students were placed in groups of 2-4 for discussion purposes. I was incredibly impressed by how honest the dialogue was between students as they collaboratively worked through their own experiences to identify those traits which they felt best fit the idea of a "Good Teacher".

Most expected the next step to be brainstorming qualities of a "Bad Teacher", but instead we then worked through the same process but from a personal or peer level perspective: what did they think a "Good Student" is and what behaviors would those individuals demonstrate? Again, the conversation was thoughtful and reflective, requiring many to admit their own success, and possession of positive traits as good students (even if the social indicator, grades, did not necessarily reflect that).

Step 2
Students then reviewed the qualities/traits they had identified and tied behaviors to with the purpose of winnowing them down to only three which are demonstrated by BOTH stakeholders. While some ("Be to class on time, prepared to work," for example) were clearly applicable to both. Other norms, such as "Being entertaining" were clearly intended for the individual in the teacher's role. As a means of making this dialogue around ideas, groups were asked to craft a graphic organizer articulating the three traits possessed by both students and teachers, as well as two behaviors demonstrated by each individual possessing that quality within the context of their specific classroom role. After each group in each class completed their posters, I collected them with the goal of combining all the information into an initial draft of norms.

Step 3
The evening prior to next class, I collected the combined qualities/traits along with the corresponding observable behaviors. After reviewing each graphic organizer, I also went back to each group's original "Good Teacher/Students" Charts for any additional information that had not found its way through to the "next round," but might offer some additional insight into the groups' thinking processes. There, I found quite a number of interesting bits of good teacher suggestions that seemed to be veiled suggestions for my own improvement. Though not explicitly requested, it was noted and appreciated.

I also picked up on a common "Good Student" quality that many saw as lacking among their peers: involvement with the school community, and idea did that ultimately find it's way into the final draft. The initial data collected yielded about fifteen distinct qualities/traits that could be easily winnowed down to three: Be Respectful, Be Responsible, and Be Positive. "Positivity" as a quality was the only variation from a previously used building-wide set of norms (replacing "Productive"), and its inclusion was solely due to student suggestion. In their original groups of three, students reviewed each of the three qualities and students generated norms for each. As they read and discussed with one another, they offered suggestions for revision, addition, or exclusion and overall thoughts regarding acceptability. The overwhelmingly consensus was on agreement with 5-8 behaviors with each quality. This became the final draft that was to be shared the next class.

Step 4
Though there were two classes where no work was done toward finalizing our class (and, again, by this I mean all five of my eleventh grade course comprised of Regents and Advanced Placement course) norms, we did revisit our progress in the overall process. On the sixth day, I shared a poster I had put together with gold lettering declaring "Our Class Norms", signed it, and asked each student to do the same as an expression of their agreement. Though this activity took time away from regular instruction, the conversation evoked regarding good students and teachers, as well as the impact each has has on their individual success was both fruitful and informative. I played little role other than scribe, facilitator and wordsmith, and am very proud of the set of norms we came up with together.

My sense in observing the classroom during the activities was that students took the process seriously and thoughtfully reflected on the qualities and behaviors they found worthy to move forward. Some defended their ideas that others felt unnecessary and were willing to compromise over the inclusion of some they may had dismissed originally.