Building Community in the Classroom

What is a classroom community?

• A cooperative environment within a classroom, in which students play different roles, hold varying responsibilities, and successfully navigate interactions amongst one another

• An activity in which students learn about citizenship

• You and your fellow teachers working together

• All of the classrooms in your school

What do student jobs in the classroom help students emulate?

• How people are responsible for jobs in a large-scale community or society

• Jobs they might want to do when they're adults

• How teachers work together

• None of the answers are correct

Which of the following is NOT a good way to build a strong classroom community?

• Teaching problem-solving

• Encouraging students to tell on each other when someone is not being responsible

• Classroom projects

• Student jobs

Mr. Jefferson begins his first class by holding the end of the yarn, introducing himself to the class with his name and a fact about himself, and rolling the ball of yarn to a student. The student grabs the piece of yarn, repeats the process, then rolls the ball to another student while still holding on to his piece of the yarn. This process continues for all the students. What is TRUE about this activity?

• The children learn the value of teamwork.

• The students get to know each other's names and attributes.

• All of the answers are correct.

• It acts as an icebreaker activity.

What is a way to encourage students to be more independent when communicating with each other?

• Help them practice good communication and problem-solving skills.

• Read them books about other students being independent.

• Tell them to ignore problems and try to move on without working through them.

• Intervene in every problem students have.