Classroom Culture
​                                         By:  Patty Tolly

Project at a Glance :

This project uses the design sequence to encourage students to develop their own classroom norms.  

Driving Question:

How do we create a classroom where you want to come and learn everyday?            

Standards:

• Collaboration and Global Thinking
• Communication
  
• Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
  
• Flexibility and Adaptability
• Ethical Citizenship
• Personal Accountability

Team / Culture Building:

• Students will do the Creative Sequence activity and then find students that are different from themselves to form groups of four.
  

Entry Event:

• Read the story The Invisible Boy by Trudy Ludwig​

• Toothpaste activity- Give each group a trial size toothpaste and one toothpick per person.  One person squeezes the toothpaste out unto a plate and then they all try to put it back in using only the toothpick.

Stakeholders:

• Students
• Teacher
• Administration
• Guest Teachers
• School Community

Empathy Building:

• Reading The Invisible Boy will start the empathy process.
• Students will do a Stakeholders Map for students to process who is affected or has a stake in how the classroom runs. 
• Hopes, Fears, and Norms - hold off on the Norms part, this will be part of the their solution.
• Empathy Map
• Bug List - have students take a quiet walk through the school and write down what bugs them.  Do they hear loud kids in the hall?  Do they see kids running? etc.

Inquiry / Need to Knows:

• Create a list of Need to Knows, students create questions in small groups.
• Teamwork video
• Interviews- Use the Need To Know to form questions to ask:  How do others want to feel at school?  How do others learn best?   What do others want our environment to be like?  How do others want to be treated? ​

Incubation:

• Analyzing Analogies - this will be great to have students look at what they don’t want the class to be. ​

​Checking in:

• Talking Chips  As students get their interview questions ready, they will use the talking chip to make sure that everyone in group shares their questions. ​

• Students will do the Metaphor Making protocol to dive deeper into their solution ideas.

---

Solution Building:

• Poster session
• Gallery Walk

Critique and Revision: 

• Students come up with 100 Ideas and then use Dot Voting to narrow to their top 3 or 4. 
• Students will get feedback and revise their metaphors. 

Authentic Audience:

• Students
• Special Education Teacher
• Administration

Final Presentation:

• After narrowing down their choices, students will present a poster and a song that represents their solution. The songs will be something familiar not student produced.​​

Click here for teacher's full plan.

​Reflection and Feedback:

•  The audience will listen for the rule that the students thought was the most important and then gave feedback on their thought process and how the rule may look in other situations. 
  
• Students will reflect and regroup and change, if needed, the wording of their rule. 

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

Meet the Educator:

​Patty Tolly teaches 6th grade at Forest Hills Public Schools.  

     I am passionate about Design Thinking because it gives my students a real life format to use in PBL. PBL has been a passion of mine for the last 10 years because it gives students the "When will I ever use this". It is real life learning."