Connected Classrooms - Defining Connected Classrooms

Classrooms have many dimensions and interactions, but a Connected Classroom focuses on two key interconnected ideas -- that student experience and learning is inextricably linked to the safety created by a classroom's structures and systems and the educator in the room. Developing an intentional plan that includes BOTH pathways helps students feel that they will succeed academically and feel a sense of belonging as they move towards a future that they create and become lifelong learners.

In a Connected Classroom, teachers implement student-centered structures (like direct teach of expectations and intentional use of brain breaks or get to know you activities) along with soft skills (how to apologize, how to disagree with grace) and an academic mindset (teaching how to take notes, leadership roles in cooperative groupings).

Examples of Structures for Academic Experience and Learning

Group roles like CHAMPS
Direct teach expectations on how to move to lab tables (explicit skill that many lack)
Student choice of partners (modeling positive choices, not just friends)
Safety rules (explicit content and skill that most do not understand)
Check in structures with peers (4 Corners, Jigsaws)
Intentional collaboration groups or instructional practices
Create predictable and consistent structures
Help students set timers and check in
Proximity to groups with positive questioning and redirection

Examples of Interpersonal Structures

Treatment agreements
Intentional Collaboration
Brain Breaks
Group discussions with sentence stems or pre-written questions
Model Skills to disagree
Use a spark plan to greet students
Use rubric for students to gauge own learning and group dynamic
Teach explicit skills where students show a deficit
Provide Sentence stems to start an apology
Model tone and eye contact in a corrective conversation – make explicit corrections
Maintain dignity of all in all circumstances… high compassion and high expectations

If the goal of a Connected Classroom is a place in which students, teachers, admin, parents and the community connect, then each aspect of the school must contribute to the desired outcome.

Student Examples of Being Connected to Self and Others

Reflection over My Impact on Student Experience

Creating Connections on Campus