Building a Classroom Community
How does a classroom community support learning?
Children learn best when they feel they are part of a community in which everyone feels accepted and individuality is encouraged. Creating this kind of classroom community requires planning and practice. Below is one of the 5 elements of building that community. A learning community is:
a group of people who share common academic goals and attitudes, who meet semi-regularly to collaborate on classwork.
where students must feel they are known and that their voices are heard and count, whether learning Math or creating rules or planning a field trip,
where students feel respected and be able to respect others. They must feel valued as individuals but understand the importance of their contribution to the group.
Explore the 5 elements of building Classroomm Community here!
What does the research say?
Based on meta-studies assessed by John Hattie and experts like Robert Marzano, certain practices such as those found in Building Classroom Community, contribute greatly to student learning. The ranking of these strategies is measured by Effect size. Effect size is a measure of the contribution an education intervention makes to student learning.
A year of growth in school for students is considered as equal to an effect size of .4. Strategies and interventions encouraged here Building Classroom Community nearly more than double the possible growth of students learning (see blue in visual below).
Influences-overview-Visible-Learning.pdf