TEN Ways for Building a Positive Classroom Environment This School Year

ONE: Use note cards to share fun facts. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAGtPC6Aw1s

This activity works well with any age group, and it’s especially good for middle school and high school, where it can be challenging to build a positive classroom community. Have students write down facts on note cards and then share throughout the year. Check out the link above for a great way to implement in your classroom. Such a fun and engaging way to begin the new year!

TWO: Create a team goal and work together to achieve it!

There is nothing better than setting your eyes on the prize and working as a team to make it happen! Setting goal(s) with your students is the best way to share the importance of making and achieving team goals. 

Create one goal with your class and keep track of HOW you choose to achieve this goal as a team. Once you and your students have achieved 3 successful goals, begin the process of developing individual goals using the same format. Track your progress and reap the rewards of reaching your goals!

Here are some examples of team goals:

• We can read one social issue text each month as a class.

• We can give 3 compliments to a peer each week.

• WE can solve 2 challenging word problems in class or for homework each week. 

Check out one goal setting template to use with your students from pinterest.com - SMART Goal Template.

THREE: Play the Gratitude Game with your class.

This game is adorable, and full credit is given to Karyn of the blog Teach Beside Me for it. She uses it with her own kids, but you can definitely adapt it to the classroom by using pipe cleaners, paper straws, or even different colors of pencils, toothpicks, or popsicle sticks.

FOUR: Give a quick shout out.

This is a quick way for students to celebrate each other for doing a job well or for attempting something difficult. Shout-outs can be incorporated at any point in a class. First-grade teacher Valerie Gallagher of Providence, Rhode Island, rings a chime when she wants to get the class’s attention to ask who has a shout-out. You can choose any item that makes a sound or create a cheer to use as a call to attention for team shout-outs!

Friendly Fridays: Elizabeth Peterson, a fourth-grade teacher in Amesbury, Massachusetts, uses Friendly Fridays as a simple way for students to lift each other and themselves up. Peterson has her students write a friendly, anonymous note to a classmate, practice using positive self-talk, or use storytelling to give a peer a pep talk

FIVE: Praise students for EFFORT, instead of intelligence.

You risk discouraging growth by primarily praising intelligence and sheer effort, instead of acknowledging the importance of planning and trying new approaches.

Complimenting intelligence can reinforce it as a fixed trait, says Dweck. Although effort is aligned with a growth mindset, explicitly praising it can backfire. For example, if you tell students to “just keep trying” when their hard work doesn’t pay off, they may feel incompetent. Instead, give feedback that highlights the values of planning and trying different learning strategies:

SIX: Hold regular class meetings.

What is a class meeting exactly? It’s more than just morning calendar time or sharing about the star or person of the week. It’s a way to regularly check in with your class as a group. You should choose a time of day that fits naturally with your learning schedule. Make sure the meeting is held with fidelity and that everyone on the team is held accountable for their part in the classroom meeting. Here are some tips on how to hold one, courtesy of Once Upon a Learning Adventure .

SEVEN: Try out Group Salutes with your students.

This strategy is a moment shared between two or more students at the beginning or end of an activity, a Group Salute is a teacher-prompted interaction that is a quick, low-prep way to cultivate community. The shared gesture can be physical—like a high five—or social—a teacher could ask students to express gratitude to their group members.

There’s some interesting data supporting this idea: Researchers found that NBA teams whose players touch the most early in the season—high fives, fist bumps, etc.—had the best records later for the season. Now this is a fact I can definitely get down with - Cheers to Group Salutes!

EIGHT: Teach the Values of Challenges

Challenges can be very overwhelming at times for your students, and for you. Why not teach the value of overcoming a specific challenge, and the social and emotional experience that happens when you face your fear, meet your goal, or persevere through a BIG challenge. 

Explaining the inherent benefits of overcoming obstacles can help students develop a growth mindset, according to Dweck. She specifically recommends teaching about the effect on the brain when people push through their comfort zones to grasp difficult concepts. 

The neurons form stronger connections, leading to improved intelligence over time. Therefore, effort and difficulty are paths, not roadblocks, to becoming smarter. Middle school students in a control group that learned this lesson earned a clear increase in math scores over two years, according to a study by Dweck and her colleagues. But those in a group that thought intelligence was fixed saw a decrease. As these results show, simply teaching the broad benefits of building a growth mindset can have a positive and lasting effect on students.

NINE: Allow Time for Goal-Based Journaling.

Journaling serves different purposes, including encouraging students to build a growth mindset through goal setting. 

As an exit ticket, ask students to:

• Set learning goals for themselves

• Discuss progression toward meeting these goals

For example, a student may set a goal to earn a certain grade on an upcoming quiz. To accomplish this goal, the student must write the steps he or she is taking. These could include completing a specific number of extra homework questions each night.No matter the goal, students should follow the SMART method, ensuring it isn’t too lofty.

Goal(s) should be:

• Specific

• Measurable

• Attainable and Agreed-Upon

• Realistic

• Time-Based

This kind of goal setting is, in a sense, the embodiment of building a growth mindset. Students are working to improve, dissuading themselves from thinking their traits and skills are fixed. What will happen when they meet their goals? They’ll understand the importance of accountability, teamwork, and they’ll know growth is always possible. 

TEN: Human Bingo

You might be familiar with the game Human Bingo: students walk around the room and mingle until they find someone that matches the facts listed on a bingo-style sheet. The student writes down the person’s name, and the first student to get five in a row — or fill out the whole board — wins.

Well, we adapted this for the virtual classroom: We used the Flipgrid introduction videos to populate a Bingo board, with each space including a statement about one of the participants. Then, we displayed the board on a shared screen and invited participants to write, using Zoom’s annotation tools, the correct names in each square. Participants discussed the answers in the chat and on the mic. The only rule was that you couldn’t write your own name. Here is a blank Bingo card you can edit for your own class. 

See link for more information and classroom fun - 7 Activities to Build Community and Positive Classroom Culture During Online Learning