Building Belonging Classrooms
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Building Belonging Classrooms 〰️
Building Belonging Classrooms
$350 for 20 clock hours or two CEUs
Format: Online, Hybrid
August 12 to September 15, 2024
This foundation course is designed for developing educators seeking to establish a culturally responsive community of learners who feel safe, seen and connected, especially for those students who are farthest away from educational justice. This course aims to provide you with joyful and practical strategies to employ at the start of the school year to form authentic relationships with students and their families.
As a part of the 100 clock hours for certificate renewal, teachers and administrators must complete clock hours focused on equity-based school practices aligned to the cultural competency, diversity, equity, and inclusion (CCDEI) standards. Building Belonging Classrooms fulfills the requirement.
Belonging Classrooms
How can we capitalize on our strengths and the creative capacity of our students to create a Belonging Classroom? Learn more by reading Names Are Sacred.
Building a Remote Community
What strategies can we employ to cultivate authentic connections with and among our students?
In our online language arts class, students worked in small groups to create films for a poem by a youth poet laureate.
Thinking Critically
What does it look like to cultivate critical thinking in the classroom? How can we create a safe environment for difficult discussions. Learn more by reading Sometimes Grandma Is Racist.
the concept for thiis piece came out of a class discussion in which this student declared that “fear was the sister of hate”
Challenging Topics
How do we teach about the Shoa’h or the Khmer Rouge or the ongoing enslavement of millions of Africans? How should we reference rape or child abuse? What skills can our students develop for them to have productive and respectful discussions?
in our study of the shoah, we visited the Holocaust center for humanity where my students saw one of the gas canisters used in the Nazi death camps. back in the classroom, we talked about complicity.
Socratic Seminars
This focus could be as structured as replacing some of your class discussion formats with a version of a Socratic Seminar that’s right for you. Also, it could be as fluid as introducing elements of the socratic method in your teaching. Ideal for confident teachers.
Half of the students discuss how identity intersects with privilege as the other half observes the conversation and prepare to coach their partner.
Knowledge Construction
Knowing that students learn differently, how can we create curricula where every student is able to access the content?
after studying propaganda, students made “truth posters” about issues that were meaningful to them
Work and Life
In what ways are we better preparing our students for work and life? How can we make more connections from our classroom to the real world?
How to Talk to Students about Race and Racism
Expanding our own understanding (and vocabulary) so that we can create opportunities for students to learn how race has emerged as a social construct and how systemic racism continues to exploit people of color in ways that benefit white people. What do these conversations look like in high school classrooms and kindergarten tables?
Discussions
What strategies can we execute to promote robust and independent discussion in the classroom?
now that our discussion-culture is in place, students are able to run them on their own
Innovative Instruction
What are some strategies to spice up how you teach writing conventions?
Oration
How can we integrate opportunities for students to practice public speaking?
a student presents her holocaust revelation project
Project-Based Learning
Project-Based Learning is a compelling strategy to engage all students and all of each student. Each year, we virtually “travel” to a country and students get a nearly-first-hand taste of the vicissitudes inherent in being a peripatetic.
other projects have included a living history museum in which students answered questions about their subject in the first person.
Technology
Explore how technology such as FlipGrid, Google Expedition and Microsoft Teams can enhance your lessons and make your job easier — after overcoming the learning curve. This is ideal for teachers wanting to spice up the classroom and willing to put in some extra time.
Students used flip grid to give their opinion on calling a woman “a girl”
NaNoWriMo
Activities and structures to support students’ participation in National Novel Writing Month.
Making Mistakes
How do we cultivate a community where mistakes are “expected, inspected and respected.”
Strengthening Belonging Clasrooms
〰️
Strengthening Belonging Clasrooms 〰️
Strengthening Belonging Classrooms
$350 for 20 clock hours or two CEUs
Format: Online, Hybrid
September 22 - October 24, 2024
This advanced course is designed for established educators seeking to enrich their culturally responsive community of learners and foster connections among students, so they feel safer and more welcome in their classroom, especially for those students who are farthest away from educational justice. This course aims to provide you with practical and joyful strategies to employ in the first few months of the school year to deepen a sense of belonging for every student.
As a part of the 100 clock hours for certificate renewal, teachers and administrators must complete clock hours focused on equity-based school practices aligned to the cultural competency, diversity, equity, and inclusion (CCDEI) standards. Strengthening Belonging Classrooms fulfills the requirement.
Thank you for teaching such a meaningful class! Great resources - especially for creating a student-centered classroom.
Jessica Rodriguez, Seattle Public Schools
Love of Learning
How can we cultivate, support and expand intrinsic motivation?
Over the summer I asked one of my students-to-be if she was going to “bring it” this year. On the first day of school, she brought “it.”
White Teachers
In an educational system populated more and more by students of color, the overwhelming majority of the teaching force continues to be comprised of white teachers. Cultural misunderstandings and unconscious bias lead to disproportionate punitive referrals and misdiagnoses, fostering an inhospitable learning community. When teachers examine their thinking and develop their racial literacy, they can establish a more equitable classroom, which benefits all of their students. Learn more by reading White Teachers of Black Students.
Introversion
How can we engage our introverted students in a way that honors their strengths?
Giving students a 24-hour take-away window transformed how my introverted students participated in class discussions
Cultural Literacy
How can we honor the cultural identities of our students in ways that are genuine and respectful? What resources can we use to learn about those identities so that students aren’t burdened with the onus of educating their peers and you? How can we encourage cultural exploration and steer clear of cultural appropriation? How can we create a classroom environment where every child feels safe to share and safe to be curious?
Bollywood Shakespeare?
Reinvigorate yourself by developing a new take on an old idea. My seventh-graders performed Shakespeare’s A Comedy of Errors set in modern-day Mumbai — complete with a Bollywood dance finale. It became both a vehicle to connect with the text in a more meaningful way and to affirm the cultural backgrounds of many of my students. It also connected back to our larger examination of what it means to be an anti-biased global citizen by providing us with many real-life conversations about the distinctions among cultural education, cultural exploration and cultural appropriation.
In our theatrical productions we have two casts so that each student can also have a crew role - everything from house manager to wigmaster
Risk-Taking
In what ways do we model risk-taking in our classrooms? How ready are we to feel foolish?
I’m in the center as Cruelerella de vil — peta member — with my coat made from the carcasses of stuffed animals
Intellectually-Gifted Education
How can we design our curriculum and our classroom culture to best meet the needs of intellectually gifted students? What pedagogical strategies will be effective for every child?
Modeling
Sometimes all we need is for a Master Teacher to demonstrate strategies for student engagement and relationship-building.
leading a discussion about what it means to be a professional. the students’ teacher watches as i employ easy-to-implement techniques to enhance students’ learning experiences, decrease the teacher’s workload and increase her joy.
Zest
You want to feel more energy in your teaching. You’ve misplaced your verve. You used to be happier doing this. Get together with a few of your colleagues and together we’ll scrape off the barnacles and get to the ground-level heart of it, dusting off that beautiful essence of what makes you love teaching.
Service Learning
Explore ways to pre-teach community service projects and root those projects in your curriculum.
taking my students to see where their trash ends up at the cedar hills landfill
Community Connections
In what ways might we capitalize on community resources?
students consider the myriad ways people of faith pray to god
Africa
Resources and activities to support students as they combat mis-information and establish a more accurate understanding of Africa, including the fact that it’s not a country.
using our makerspace, students scaled their african country to showcase geographical features
Using AI in the Classroom
In our project, Sartorial Poetry, students used AI to generate ideas in a way that enhanced and expanded their creativity and critical thinking.
Talking with Students about Racism and Police Brutality
I hosted a space for young people to gather online to share feelings and ask questions about racism and police brutality. It was free and open to all. I reserved two spots in each session for teachers to come and observe. After the session, we would debrief and co-learn.
Nurturing Student Leadership
Compassion
What’s the difference between pity and compassion? How can compassion be manifested in the classroom?
students ponder their own buddha nature during a visit to the shinnyo-en buddhist temple
Strategic Sharing
Telling stories about our families, our weekends and our misguided youth is an effective and easy way to build authentic relationships with students and create an atmosphere where learning can flourish. At the same time, students stressing out over our contentious divorce is way over the line and doesn’t serve anyone well. When does strategic sharing become over-sharing? How do we reset if we have crossed the line? How can we share in a sincere way without wearing our hearts on our sleeves?
Authenticity
What does it mean to be your authentic self as a teacher - to be genuine with your colleagues, your students and their families? How can that vulnerability transform your teaching and increase your joy?
students receive candid feedback from a caring adult during our entrepreneurial project
Student Empowerment
In what ways can we foster a classroom culture that capitalizes on students’ desire and ability to take ownership in running the show?
A CLASS OF FIFTH-GRADERS COMPOSed THE FIVE THINGS THEY NEEDED TO BE READY TO LEARN EACH DAY. NOW A NEW STUDENT EACH WEEK TAKES ON THE TASK OF MAKING SURE THAT EVERYONE IS AT THEIR BEST BEFORE THE LESSON BEGINS. STUDENTS ARE MORE VESTED IN THEIR COMMUNITY AND THE TEACHER DOESN’T NEED TO WRANGLE EVERYONE’S ATTENTION EACH MORNING.
Emotional Learning
In what ways might you integrate SEL into your curriculum? When a student is sick for more than a few days, I have the class call them and put them on speaker phone. It’s a hot unintelligible mess, but it doesn’t seem to matter to them. One parent wrote:
Dear Ms. Russell - Your phone call and hearing his friends, and knowing that everyone missed him was like a dose of medicine that worked so wonderfully. After the call, he found a burst of energy, sat up some more and had a smile on his face that he was not able to find all day. Thank you for making his day!
Family Connections
How can we build authentic relationships with families? How can we honor the value and uniqueness of each child’s family? I give my students an assignment to “collect elder wisdom.” In one small assignment, I accomplish those goals and so much more.
My “elder wisdom” assignment has yielded some poignant and surprising results including everything from financial advice to encouraging second chances.
Physical Space
How can the arrangement of our classrooms engender how students learn?
Students scaled mandela’s cell to their size and the space became a sanctuary in my often-over-stimulating classroom
To Hug or Not to Hug
Developing our own understanding of our personal space and comfort, as well as modeling respect for the personal space and comfort of our students. Simultaneously, providing for ways to establish a safe and nurturing environment for students who express and receive affection in myriad ways.
Revelations
In Revelation Projects, students reflect on a unit, identify personal revelations and express those in a way that is meaningful for them.
African Revelation project connects modern art and photography to challenge the idea of who has the right to tell one’s story #EverydayAfrica
Content Knowledge Demonstration
In what ways might students show they have mastered a course’s content? How might those demonstrations dovetail with the skills we want them to master?
My students researched a contemporary problem for the purpose of writing a children’s book to explain the issue in an accessible way. The project culminated in them reading their books to the third-graders down the hall #schoolconnections #oration #leadership #proofreading
Teacher Wellness
What inspires and delights you? What frustrates you? What did you abhor about your own experiences as a student? How does your background inform your teaching? What are your buttons?
Personal Professional Development
How do we navigate the myriad resources available to teachers? How do we find the time to pursue an area of interest? How do we know what even interests us in the first place? Learn more by reading Kids’ Brains Are Sponges. Adults’ Brains Are Bricks.
Twice-Exceptionality
How can we better understand and support our 2E students?
