Build Your Metropolis:
Cooperative Learning Community
The cooperative learning community must become a reality, not only for students to achieve, but for educators to thrive and not just survive as teachers.
Creating brain-friendly classroom settings is essential to a collaborative working and learning environment.
News flash: at Phyllis' Optimizing K-2 Literacy Institute Summer 2008, she will be demonstrating and sharing how to build a cooperative learning community while optimizing literacy. Click here to find out more.
Reminder: Make sure you click on all the blue text links and graphics to get the most out of your visit. They are links full of information, services, resources and recommendations to support YOU, the Super Teacher.
CLASSROOM OWNERSHIP
The first step to create a cooperative learning community is to let go of the ownership of the classroom.
Students will not become a community if YOU are the “Sage on the stage”.
Some practical ways to do this include:
OUR ROOM
I quit decorating my room during the summer for Back to School and throughout the year.
My kids decorate it.
I give parents a note on the first day that says,
“Welcome to our cooperative learning community. You’ll notice that our room is naked. Come back in a couple of weeks and your kids will have dressed it!”
We then work together create a brain friendly classroom setting that is student centered.
The time before the school year starts is more productively spent planning with colleagues and building a team.
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STUDENT CENTERED CLASSROOM
My students totally have ownership in our classroom.
The routines we habituate during the first 6 weeks , after the kids help me decide where and why we need routines, make the room a place where they remark,
“We don’t need a substitute when you are gone.
We know what to do and they get in the way!”
Classroom agreements are just that, OUR agreements on how we will treat each other and live together in our community.
We work together to create an inclusive classroom. I have truly become the “guide on the side, not the sage on the stage”
thus building rapport with students.
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CREATE INDEPENDANT KIDS
I model my belief that kids need to be independent learners and not victims of learned helplessness.
I am convinced that doing it WITH and NOT FOR or TO kids is what makes my classroom such a wonderful place to work and to learn.
In other words, I put more responsibility in the hands of my students.
We set up the standards for jobs and expectations for work done well and then we practice, practice, practice.
Since my time in New Zealand, where teaching independence ranked right up there with reading and writing,
I have used “Daily Five” as my way of organizing my students for literacy.
Margaret Mooney taught me that in the USA we encourage “learned helplessness”.
By working with students to habituate the routines and procedures of independence we create kids who:
- take joy in their learning
- strive to make wise choices with their time
- experience accelerate success
Two sisters, Gail Boushey and Joan Moser, have created a book,
The Daily Five - Fostering Literacy Independence in the Elementary Grades 
, that does a wonderful job of showing you how to carefully and
systematically train your students to participate in each of the Daily Five components.
This independence allows you the
freedom to teach small groups of individual students.
Establishing this same type of routines in Math or in Integrated Curriculum time has provide for continued independence of students throughout the day.
Classroom management becomes a Student Centered Process
and a Whole Class Responsibility
.
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RISK SUPPORTIVE ENVIRONMENT
Developing a classroom in which all students can grow and function in their abundance should be our goal.
Bonnie Bernard synthesizes research when she suggests that classroom that support children and create resiliency foster:
Caring and Supportive Relationships -
Caring relationships within systems convey compassion, understanding and respect.
They are grounded in attentive listening and establish safety and basic trust.
Positive and High Expectations -
High expectations communicate firm guidance, structure and challenge, and most importantly convey a belief in a young person's innate resilience. They highlight strengths and assets as opposed to problems and deficits.
Opportunities for Meaningful Participation -
Opportunities for meaningful participation, leadership and contribution to the community may be actualized through decision making, listening and being heard, with each person being included with valued responsibilities (Bernard, 1991).
My experience has been that I must intentionally and deliberately create a classroom in which all
children feel included.
I have found many sources for inclusion activities that help the kids to
value each other and work together.
Some of my favorites include:
Tribes
The training they provide is well worth the time and investment.
I took my whole staff.
We have taken the principles of inclusion, influence and community and woven them into our program.
These need not be seen as an add-on to your content curriculum, but should be integrated throughout the day as ways to get kids talking and working together.
Initiative games, challenge courses and problem solving games all provide opportunities for students to work together.
Some information you might want to look at is:
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CLASSROOM ENERGIZERS
In our cooperative learning community, we invest time everyday in energizers and initiative games.
The key is to have a reason for what you are doing and NOT interject yourself into the process.
In the video below I integrate music into this classroom as an energizer and demonstrate positive classroom management techniques.
Mrs. Gooneybird is a great classroom energizer to get kids moving, singing and reading.
I also use Mrs.Gooneybird as a writing exercise by having students write their own versions and invent new movements while using the instrumental track on my album. For Example, Mrs. Polar Bear has seven cubs, if I am teaching a Bear Theme Unit.
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The idea of classroom energizers and initiative games is to encourage your students to accept challenges and solve problems and for you to facilitate, debrief and encourage the kids to share their ideas and experiences.
This is one of the hardest and most rewarding things I do in the classroom.
After 4-6 weeks our kids know each other and are very comfortable appreciating each other.
They see themselves as investors in each other and OUR classroom.
I encourage you to build a Cooperative Learning Community in your classroom
.
As you do discipline problems are lessened, joy is increased and you get to learn with your students as you journey together.
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In the SPOTLIGHT
Save-the-Teacher Podcast
Double click Play to listen to the episode, "Take Risks Become a Phenomenal Teacher".
Here Phyllis talks about Building Community in your classroom and creating Independant Learners. |
Super Teachers Create Cooperative Learning Communities!
What does your Metropolis look like?
Is the Riddler disrupting the peace?
Is the Penguin causing chaos?
Are your students defending and protecting their community?
Do you and your colleagues ban together?
I Challenge You...Go Forth... Build Your Metropolis...Save the Teacher!
"Phyllis doesn't just talk the talk, she walks the walk. She models and inspires me to create a cooperative learning community even while showing me how to better teach reading and writing. I always get more than I expected. Thank you Phyllis!"
--Judy Weisfled, Teacher
Click here for Institute details and Registration information
Continue your emergence as Super Teacher
by exploring more of the Super Teacher Manual
Community in the classroom is important, but it needs to be supported by a strong teaching philosophy.
Quality Literacy Instruction is imperative while creating independant learners.
How can you fit it all in? Integrated Instruction is your Super Strength.
Before you can teach your students abundance you need to recognize and nurture your own. You need to Know You.
