Naj Sumar

Classroom guidelines

Classroom guidelines help create a clear and welcoming learning environment. They provide transparent and explicit information about the classroom, setting important boundaries around classroom conduct (Goodman, 2011). When instructors share what they are and why they are being implemented, guidelines set important ground rules that help students understand what’s expected of them.

Effective guidelines are more than just set rules. They are fundamental to building community and creating the climate necessary for peer engagement, classroom discussions, and engaging with diverse views.

Below are sample guidelines to consider the kind of classroom community you wish to have in your classroom.

From Sensoy and DeAngelo (2014):

• Strive for intellectual humility. Be willing to grapple with challenging ideas.
• Differentiate between opinion—which everyone has—and informed knowledge, which comes from sustained experience, study, and practice. Hold your opinions lightly and with humility.
• Let go of personal anecdotal evidence and look at broader group-level patterns.
• Notice your own defensive reactions and attempt to use these reactions as entry points for gaining deeper self-knowledge, rather than as a rationale for closing off.
• Recognize how your own social positionality informs your perspectives and reactions to your instructor and those whose work you study in the course.
• Differentiate between safety and comfort. Accept discomfort as necessary for social justice growth.
• Identify where your learning edge is and push it. For example,
• When you think “I already know this”, instead ask yourself “How can I take this deeper?” Or, “How am I applying in practice what I already know?”

From the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence (n.d.) at Carnegie Melon University:

• Listen actively and attentively.
• Ask for clarification if you are confused.
• Do not interrupt one another.
• Challenge one another, but do so respectfully.
• Critique ideas, not people.
• Do not offer opinions without supporting evidence.
• Avoid put-downs (even humorous ones).
• Take responsibility for the quality of the discussion.
• Build on one another’s comments; work toward shared understanding.
• Do not monopolize discussion.
• Speak from your own experience, without generalizing.
• If you are offended by anything said during discussion, acknowledge it immediately.
• Arrive on time.
• Turn your cell phone off.

Including these guidelines in your syllabus can give students a clear understanding of how you will teach your course. This approach helps create a sense of predictability and can be especially effective for interactive classes or those covering sensitive topics. Inviting students to contribute their own suggestions can also help ensure the guidelines address everyone’s classroom needs. This can also allow students to feel a sense of ownership over the guidelines and reflect on their own sense of comfort and safety in the classroom. Setting aside time at the beginning of the semester to add to the guidelines can also be the first community building activity for your students.

Reflection activities

For both instructors and students, reflecting on identity and how it shapes one’s engagement in the course and the world around them is crucial to how we show up in the classroom. Here is a resource that simplifies the concept of identity and its importance. This can help instructors and students develop foundational knowledge for understanding both themselves and their peers.

In the realm of instructor self-reflection, instructors can benefit from asking themselves the following questions when preparing their course and its materials:

• What expectations do I have about this topic?
• What standards related to my own cultural ideas might I use to evaluate students and their contributions in the classroom?
• How might my expectations about this topic impact my evaluation of and interactions with students’ differing opinions?
• What might I think about students who don’t meet my expectations and standards?
• What impact might that have on how I interact with students in the classroom?

The answers to these questions can be helpful to frame your own approach as an instructor, and some can even be shared with students at the beginning of the semester to introduce your vision of the course and the role of community in your classroom. Communicating your expectations and cultural ideas about the topic, for example, can role model self-reflection, continuous learning, and authenticity. This can also set the tone for learning as an imperfect science, frame the relevance of personal knowledges and experiences, and validate that you welcome unique perspectives.

These questions can be equally helpful for students to reflect on, with appropriate modifications. It is important to connect these questions to pedagogical goals, course materials, or additional information. This will provide students with clear reasons for answering these questions, such as applying their knowledge. Responding to these questions can feel vulnerable or challenging for some students, so being clear and transparent can support their comfort and learning.

In-class activities

Perspective-taking activity

At the start of the semester, asking students what the course’s main topic means to them can be a powerful way to encourage students to connect personally connect to the course and share their own interests related to the topic. The activity can be structured in the following way:

• Individual reflection: Give students some time to write down their thoughts or brainstorm ideas about what the course topic means to them personally. This can include their past experiences, knowledge, career aspirations, or cultural background.
• Pair discussion: Have students pair up and take turns explaining their perspectives to each other. Encourage them to ask both clarifying and exploratory questions during these conversations.

This activity promotes exchanges of different viewpoints while also helping students develop important skills such as reflection, teamwork/collaboration, and communication.

Varying participation

Acceptance is a crucial component of a student’ sense of belonging in the classroom. Many students may worry that acceptance hinges on shared views, levels of intelligence, or levels of comprehension. In other words, students fear being different (Perry, 2022). In practice, students may fear participating in class, avoiding sharing their views or asking questions.

One strategy to build acceptance is to use small group activities in class. Instructors can instruct student to share their ideas about course content in small groups, and subsequently report back summaries of what was discussed (Perry, 2022). A similar strategy is to offer multiple participation methods, such as written and spoken responses to instructor prompts, or synchronous / asynchronous / blended opportunities to participate. This can help support and normalize different approaches to course content as well as communication styles.

Instructors can also incorporate digital tools for participation that offer a degree of anonymity. This can include poll or word cloud tools, like Microsoft Forms. These allow students to use their devices to engage and ask questions (Turgeon & Van Drom, 2019). Additionally, they allow for the range of views and ideas of students to be represented, invalidating presumed needs for uniformity. They can also be useful for reducing competition by allowing students to ask questions anonymously, while giving insight into student learning.

Teaching philosophy statements

Instructors can write teaching philosophy statements to convey your idea of community and what that will mean in your classroom. These can also communicate how you view yourself as an instructor, your idea of what teaching and learning is, and how you view your students. By adding these to the syllabus, or introducing the statement in the opening class, students can have a clear sense of the who their instructor is.

Teaching strategies

There are many teaching techniques that instructors can use throughout the semester to foster community. First, instructors can learn your student names (Hogan & Sathy). While this may feel daunting in large classes, instructors can aim to learn a handful each class. This not only helps instructors build rapport and reduce anonymity in the classroom but also helps introduce students to their peers (Barkley & Major). It is helpful to use student names each time you address students, learning through repetition while also showing that you have taken time to learn names. Instructors can learn names through encouraging students to use name tags, asking student who participate to state their name, or student surveys to link names to other information about the learner.

Instructors can also build community by reserving space for student questions. While many students may feel anxious or nervous about interrupting class time, instructors can encourage questions as a display of engaging with course content. For example, instructors can introduce participation marks for students asking questions. When time permits, instructors can also designate space at the end of class for questions. This can create a consistent structure for students, while also maintaining the importance of spaces for questions. In larger classes, instructor might want to incorporate online forums using Moodle for students to ask questions and receive responses from their peers.

References