Rules, Guidelines, Expectations
When working with children, or anyone really, simplicity can be the most powerful tool available. If you are able to keep things simple they are going to be able to better understand, better remember, and consequently follow through more successfully with what you are explaining, in this case classroom rules, guidelines, or expectations. I limited the classroom guidelines to 4 I feel can be fairly universal and lend themselves to many different aspects of a classroom. It will be important to revisit these guidelines often so that students are conscious that their behavior and actions in school, and hopefully out of school as well, are important and have an impact on their learning and their classroom community.
DESCRIPTION
1.) Be Respectful of others It is important that we are kind and appreciate what others do make and say, just as I hope everyone will be to me. This will help anyone who is in our class to learn and have a good school day. Developing a clear and simple definition for respect will help students follow this guideline, and will also help to make it more versatile in applying to other situations. Respecting others is the key to a positive learning environment, but making students aware of being respectful can also facilitate bringing order to a class when teaching a lesson, or even create the possibility of having guest speakers in the classroom. 2.) Listen to your teacher and peers In order to understand what to do or learn about all of our subjects it is important tat we listen to hear what the teacher has to say. When I listen to my peers I can also learn new things, like ideas they have or even fun stories at recess. Making listening an identifiable action can help solve attention issues down the road. Also, extending it to listening to both teachers and peers can encourage students to learn to focus their attention to different speakers and follow what is happening in class. 3.) Ask questions As your teacher I am here to help, so if you have questions, ask! The purpose of this activity is to work on opening a line of communication between you and your students at the beginning of the year. This won't be necessary with some of the more social students, but will be important for students who may be struggling but want to hide it because they are embarrassed. In all hopes, if you tell them its ok then they will come to you for help. You can also bring this up if someone in the class is ever chastised by their peers for asking a question, linking it to the other guidelines as well. 4.) Do your best work We're here to learn, and the same way you had to work really hard in kindergarten last year to get to first grade, we're going to do our best work here too. And I know you all can do it because you're all smart and focused enough to make it to first grade. This rule is simply to give the students a background on expectations in the class their teacher can utilize when they aren't devoting any effort to their work. Teachers can remind students to do their best work, and students can be proud of their work when they did their best. |