Building Communities Within Our Classrooms Dr. Jacquelyn Thomas-Miller January 28, 2014 Teemant, A Vitto, J 2003 Mendler, 2001

“I’m Just Saying!” “People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they have not communicated with each other.” ~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dr. Jacquelyn Thomas-Miller Southern Northern?? Baking fanatic Special Educator Community Service Wanna-Be Singer Montreal lover Educational Consulting

Let’s talk about… Making Continuous Connections Building Community – Create Experience Tables – Build our Community Values – Develop our Classroom Agreements  Rationale  Connecting teacher growth to student achievement

Making That Continuous Connection Personal Connection – creating an atmosphere of trust Academic Connection – presenting a variety of ways each day that promotes student success Social Connection – bridging the social gaps among students and adults Let’s start building our classroom community!

Who are you? Find 2 people you don’t know and share – Your name – Where and what you teach – Where were you last year this time – One of your passions (favorite things to do)

Who are we? Move and Talk Line up by birthday – month and day Line up by grade level you teach Form school/class groups Line up by years/months of teaching

Create “Experience” Tables *Form groups of no more than 4 people in your experience range *Answer the questions below (decide who will be the recorder and reporter) What is your greatest teaching challenge? What do you wish you knew more about? What aspect of teaching do you most want help working on?

Building Our Community Values As a table group, come to consensus about the values you want to guide our work together. – What would make our learning environment a place… Where you were actively engaged? You can’t wait to be part of each day? Worth coming to each school day? – What values should govern our interaction? – What would make this the safest place to grow? Let’s write our classroom agreements….

Start Building Those Communities! Thank you for sharing this learning experience with me today! References: “Relationship-Driven Classroom Management,” J. Vitto. Corwin Press “Connecting with Students,” A. Medler. ASCD