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Norms and Values:
A safe learning environment is a must for students to be active and prepared participants in their learning. A classroom where students feel stressed will only lead to them being unable to retain any meaningful information as a result. A South High, they follow a core set of values. I really love these values as they do so up in similar, but also in multiple aspects, including my own teaching philosophy.
Respectful: It is as simple as that, mutual respect between one another. Although, it is important that there is respect both actively, but also passively. In describe passive respect, would relate to respecting those that are around you even if you are not actively communicating with them. This can be as simple as doing something to indirectly support one another or reframing your sentence to keep that safe environment.
But most importantly, the two-way street of student and teacher respect. At the core of a classroom, if the students don’t feel respected, a classroom community cannot exist.
Responsible: Giving student some responsibility over their learning, which varies in many ways from speaking up, to giving them options to choose from a bit more. In terms of speaking up, one example would be asking for a mastery check as they finish their lesson. In terms of how they choose to learn, it can be such as a learning by themselves, with others, or the order in which they do their lesson in.
Ready-to-learn: A part of this relates to being ready to be part of the classroom community, which varies in many ways as to how that will look like. For some, that will be being ready to work within groups with those they choose, for others, that can look more independently. In the end, it just looks like being an active participant in their learning.
Resilient: As part of doing science, there will be roadblocks that will be encountered. Some of these can be frustrating, others can just be time consuming, but being able to reach out and finding ways around these roadblocks are what leads to moments of scientific thinking, and learning.
Characteristic and Development:
I had an ever-shifting classroom, with students coming in and out of my classroom, that my classroom now looks fairly different than what it was at the very beginning, one thing that changed was that four 10th graders ended up joining a classroom composed primarily of juniors and seniors. I also had a large number of students on IEP, with it exceeding one-third of the students within two of my classes. And over time, I got to witness the classroom community being formed naturally.
Equity:
My goal as a teacher in the classroom is ultimately to have the students learn and being a participant to the classroom. There were times in which a student was feeling like they were feeling behind, or that would become difficult to recover. I always gave these students ways to recover, second chances, feeling like putting in effort will be meaningful. For several, I saw how these second chances benefitted them, and now they are active parts of the classroom. I also provided support in other ways; one example is providing translated versions for the students who need it. And lastly, it was finding ways to provide those accommodations that were needed.