To keep students from lining up at the door we made daily trivia a part of our routine
Artifact Justification
This class ritual exemplifies the standard of Learning Environments by demonstrating my ability to build in routines, procedures and student involvement in my daily teaching practice in order to create a positive space where all students can learn. At the core of my space-making practice is fostering a sense of belonging among students and establishing predictable routines and behaviors that my students can perform on auto-pilot. My ability to manage the classroom and direct a group of over thirty 15-year-olds through high-energy activities, to the point of them leading it themselves, is evident in this simple recall game.
Building community, through gamified use of the content, points to my strength in this area. The learning environment feels safe through play, the group activity helps everyone gain a sense of belonging and cues like "giving props" help students take the low-stakes risk of attempting an answer. This ritual is a wonderful tactic that can be iterated in so many different ways for different classes; finding the right game for the class content area.
Narrative
What started out as a classroom management tactic to keep my 10th graders from crowding around the door before lunch, quickly became a tool for student empowerment and an important classroom ritual that fostered belonging.
After modeling reading the clues out, listening for the first class member to call it out and handing them the card as a token of their effort for a week or so I asked one student who had been getting the most correct answers to take my place as the leader of the game. Only a short time, later my students had taken full ownership of the activity. When class had wrapped up and things were being packed away, a student would get the cards, having already reserved the right to be the day's reader. The class would listen aptly to the clues, and over time more and more of them were familiar with the answers and could guess correctly.
Once I had removed myself as the ring leader, I was able to put my energy into fostering a sense of safety as students went out on a limb to make a speedy guess out loud. Using the "give props" technique from the book "Reconnect" I would send snaps to students making guesses and being engaged in the game. After a while, students were not just more receptive to my snaps, but they started engaging in sending them as well.
My students loved this ritual. It came to be an expected part of the day and it operated without me having to so much as nod in the direction of the cards. It felt authentically student-driven and offered me a glimpse of what they are capable of doing.
Comments