Building a Culture of Caring and Respect
                                                                             By:  Elyse Taylor

Project at a Glance:

This project will be done at the beginning of the school year to build classroom community. I want students to get to know each other, while learning to care and respect one another. Their solutions to creating a classroom of caring and respect will be hung around the room and we will try to incorporate them on a regular basis (either weekly or monthly), revisiting the solutions to see what works well that we should continue, and what other things we should change or incorporate.

Driving Question:

How could we create and grow a classroom culture of  caring and respect?             

Standards:​

• Participation
• Teamwork
• Responsibility
• Time Management

Team / Culture Building:

• ​Values Cards activity
• Creative DNA protocol​​

• Creative DNA protocol
• Small groups will be made based on this information.

​Entry Event:

• Students will share their Hopes/Fears/Norms and other information about themselves based on Values Cards and Creative DNA results, to get codes to unlock the locks on the lockbox. This may also include short games or other activities to help them unlock the box. 

Stakeholders:

• Students/peers
• Teachers
• Administration
• Parents

Empathy Building:

• Create a Stakeholders Map for each group of stakeholders

• Empathy Maps students will create personal empathy maps and then meet with their group. They will look for similarities/differences between the personal maps in their group and create ONE new map based on those similarities. ​

Inquiry / Need to Knows:

• Gallery Walk-Students will perform a gallery walk of all the group empathy maps and discuss similarities and differences

•  After a Gallery Walk - students will create a list of Need to Knows before moving onto the next stage. 

• Students will interview school counselor to discuss care and respect, possibly bring in STEM teacher. 
• Chalk Talk- Create questions to help create a social contract and see peer ideas about creating a classroom culture.

Incubation:

• Idea Quota students will come up with as many ideas as they can related to the driving question and thinking about all the information collected from previous protocols.​

• Students will list 10 things that stick out from previous discussion and protocols,  then they will Saturate and Group these things without talking. 
• Create “themes” for grouped items from the saturate and group protocol.
• Share out themes with the rest of the class and hang them around the room.

Checking in:

• Students and teacher will participate in a Fireside Chat each day and/or at the end of each activity to see how well the implemented activity meets the challenge/driving question.
• Turn and talk/exit ticket-daily
• Revisit the  Need to Know List

---

Solution Building:

• Saturate and Group - students organize ideas into common groups. Followed by creating categories or themes, this will help them start to narrow their ideas. 
• After completing the saturate and group to come up with categories, groups will choose the top 5 categories (if they have more than 5). Then, all students will walk around and participate in DOT Voting to choose their favorite ideas. 

Critique and Revision: 

•  Students will create a poster representing their solution ideas and share during a Gallery Walk, followed by reflection/feedback from other students. 

• Following the Poster session students will engage in a Fireside Chat to critique, revise, and reflect on what they can improve on prior to final presentations.​

Authentic Audience:​

• Classmates

Final Presentation:

• Each student group will give a quick 3 - 5 minute pitch of their ideas and share their poster with the class.
  
• Students will have the final say of what ideas are implemented and how the class should implement them. The goal is to try as many different activities throughout the year to continue building and maintaining a classroom culture of caring and respect. ​

Click here for teacher's full plan.

​Reflection and Feedback:

•  Feedback will be provided after each group makes their pitch. Also, the class will reflect and give feedback after each activity focusing on how well the activity met the driving question.
•  Midway through the school year the class will use the Start, Stop, Continue protocol to reflect on past activities and future activities that can help answer the driving question. ​​

Click here for the teacher's Journey through PBL on Padlet . . .

Meet the Educator:

Elyse Taylor teaches 5th grade math, science, and social studies at White Pines Intermediate in Grand Haven. 

     "I love PBL and Design Thinking because it is so engaging for students and gives them experiences and lessons they will always remember."