What is classroom culture?

Jeanne Gibbs provides an interesting definition in her book Tribes (1987). She describes the culture, or the climate, of the school or the classroom as:

the atmosphere or feeling that pervades it daily. It is the music underlying the words … an energy that either contributes to or detracts from the children’s social development and opportunity to learn.

The elements which create the music underlying the words are not easy to isolate; in practice they are totally interrelated. A positive classroom culture/community evolves from:

• an atmosphere of trust
• a sense of belonging
• a recognition, accommodation and celebration of difference
• a cooperative and collaborative environment
• an involvement in decision making
• a belief that reflection leads towards the improvement of learning
• a clear set of expectations, goals, learning outcomes
• a provision for constructive feedback
• a teacher’s authenticity, energy and interest
• a well organised physical environment

  planning the use of physical spaces includes:

  • the arrangement of the furniture
  • the availability and use of resources
  • the purpose and presentation of displays

see also:

• references

(Adapted from page 6 of Tribes (1987))

Teaching is a social occupation: its success revolves around the relationships that are established within the classroom. The dynamics are sometimes almost intangible, but, as English teachers, we have shared understandings and beliefs that have developed into strategies for establishing and maintaining collaborative classroom cultures.

An atmosphere of trust

Teachers actively seek to develop communities of learners who show care and concern for one another.

Susan Hill, in her book The Collaborative Classroom (1990), suggests that

trust builds when people openly share personal opinions and information, when encouragement is given, and when verbal and non-verbal put-downs are eliminated.

Once children know that the teacher and other class members can be trusted not to ridicule them, they feel comfortable about sharing tentative thoughts, experimenting with new learning activities and expressing their feelings.

Many educators in the last decade have developed social skills programs that identify activities to encourage team building. (A list of references has been provided at the end of this page.)

Four rules developed by Jeanne Gibbs (1987) provide a suitable starting point for encouraging an atmosphere of trust:

• Attentive listening includes paying close attention to people’s feelings and giving respect and consideration to others.
• No put-downs / appreciating others includes avoiding negative remarks and gestures, stating their appreciation of others and valuing the contributions of individuals.
• The right to pass includes choosing the extent to which each person will participate and recognising the rights of the individual.
• Confidentiality includes honouring the sharing within the class e.g. ‘no gossip — no names’ and ‘what we say here… stays here’.

A sense of belonging

When confronted with large groups of new people at meetings or on social occasions, adults tend to seek out known, familiar faces or people with whom they think they might have something in common. Children too, left to their own devices, often interact in small, familiar, single sex groups with whom they identify. Teachers need to find strategies to make students feel that being part of a large, united, supportive whole is more important than belonging to one of the smaller factions within the class group.

Feeling a sense of belonging means that everyone has adequate recognition, that everyone has opportunities to express his/her hopes about what will happen in the time the class has together and that everyone’s voice is heard.

Jeanne Gibbs explains how children react when they feel isolated within the school or class setting:

If a person does not feel included he/she will create his/her own inclusion by grabbing influence, attracting attention, creating a controversy, demanding power or taking control.

Children depend upon approval from their friends: they are more influenced by an encouraging remark from a peer than one from an adult. By carefully composing learning teams the teacher creates an interdependent support system within the classroom. The teacher facilitates the ways in which each group works together by intentionally balancing the relationships between and abilities of the children with the tasks they undertake.

Activities which encourage a sense of belonging include:

• developing whole class cooperative and interdependent projects. Creating a class video or newspaper, writing a BIG BOOK to share with another audience, putting on a performance for parents, making a giant jigsaw, organising a grandparents’ day, painting a mural, and a host of other ventures encourage students to feel that they each play a particular part in achieving a united goal.
• Play familiarisation games so that students can get to know each other. Jeni Wilson’s and Lesley Wing Jan's (1993) Thinking for Themselves contains some suitable examples.
• Set some common class goals. Our goal this week is …
• Develop displays, signs, messages and instructions that demonstrate and use language which fosters unity. For example: Welcome to our class. Have named photos of all students displayed as a group— include the teacher as one member of the class, not someone who stands above it.
• Make a class banner or quilt from small squares of material illustrated by all class members. The squares might represent the children’s faces or their hobbies and interests.
• Use cooperative games to provide a non-threatening context in which to practise social skills. Choose games which focus specifically on the skill of including others.
• Help parents feel that they belong to the class group, too. Keep a parent notice board on display, have the children write to parents about what they are doing at school, invite parents to join in class activities.

A comment from a nine year old student from Campbell Town District High School concludes this section. When she was asked by her teacher to reflect upon why it might be important to sit in a circle to hold a class meeting, she said:

Sitting in a circle is important because we all go round corners in life and this way we can face them together.

(Joan Dalton and Julie Boyd(1992) I Teach Eleanor Curtain)

A recognition, accommodation and celebration of difference

Recognising the special needs that students have forms the first step towards including them into the school environment. Accepting, valuing and acknowledging difference is important for everyone to recognise, too.

Students in classrooms today come from home backgrounds where their everyday experiences may differ widely. Factors such as gender, race, ethnicity, geographic location, religion, class and socio-economic status influence the ways in which people behave, the ways in which they use language and the values that they hold. Students with special needs may also behave, use language and hold views that differ from some of their class mates.

Studies of transcripts from classrooms by Baker and Freebody (1993) have demonstrated that literacy teaching is not neutral, that what teachers decide to do in their classrooms and what counts as good work have cultural, political and social implications.

What is required may seem obvious or natural to the teacher, but it may seem quite alien and illogical to the students. Children have to ‘read’ the educational setting and the teacher to work out what counts …

(Barbara Comber and Phil Cormack (1994) Cornerstones DECS )

Comber and Cormack raise some questions that might be useful for all teachers to consider. The text suggests that teachers should examine the ways in which classroom literacies serve, or fail to serve the children they teach. In particular:

• What kinds of texts are privileged in the classroom and whose identities (gender, race, social group) are given pride of place?
• What kinds of listening, speaking, reading, viewing and writing are students asked to do and what kind of use can they make of this in their lives now and in the future?
• What literate practices count as ‘good work’ and how do these relate to the literate and thinking practices that students bring to school?

In addition, students are helped to know and use the languages of their community, the school and the language valued by society, but, rather than reconstructing classrooms to suit particular minority groups, teachers incorporate ways of working which facilitate the learning of all students.

A critical literacy approach often helps students to uncover the social, political and cultural biases that perpetuate differences. Ask questions such as:

• Who is included?
• Who is left out?
• In whose interest…?

Looking at issues and texts from other points of view is a useful way of encouraging students to recognise and value difference. Ask students to consider how people from different social and cultural groups might react to a particular text such as a film, picture book, story, novel, TV show, advertisement or poem. Whose View is That? describes one way students have explored this issue.

Classroom management techniques which emphasise positive behaviours, cooperative learning elements which cater for individual roles within a group and self esteem activities which develop self confidence work together to celebrate the contributions of all the individuals within a class group.

Examples include:

• Use stories and picture books as a way of depersonalising, recognising and celebrating difference while promoting class discussion about the issues.
• Role play situations and discuss them as a class afterwards.

Ask: What would you do in this situation? How might you feel if…?

• Develop activities that help students to show appreciation for cultural differences e.g. cultural celebrations, school family events, ethnic lunch times, guest speakers.
• Develop activities that allow students to acknowledge and express different points of view.
• Develop cooperative challenges where individuals undertake different roles.
• Design cooperative games which celebrate individual differences such as those listed in Pathways to Cooperation by Dot Walker and Pamela Brown (1994)

A cooperative and collaborative environment

Cooperation and collaboration form the foundations for establishing a cohesive classroom culture and are interwoven throughout other elements. (Collaboration is an English Key Learning Process.) So much has been written about cooperative learning that it becomes quite a daunting task to extrapolate its essential elements, however, these features are woven into all cooperative learning programs:

• cooperative skills are taught
• the class is encouraged to operate as a cohesive group
• individuals are given responsibility for their own learning and behaviour.

A successful cooperative activity has two essential elements — goal similarity and positive interdependence. (Susan Hill 1990)

Having students to work together to produce a class newspaper illustrates the elements of cooperative learning. Concurrently with the whole class goal, individuals and groups will have their own goals. One group of students might set out to find, collate and print classified advertisements, while one student might want to sell a bicycle she has grown out of. The more similar the goals, the more cooperative the activity.

Positive interdependence occurs when group members believe that they can only succeed if they work together. Dividing the newspaper into groups responsible for creating particular aspects such as local news, sports reports, film reviews etc. is one step towards achieving positive interdependence. Others include having each group member responsible for one smaller aspect e.g. a reporter (who takes notes), an interviewer (who asks questions), a photographer and a sub editor (who designs the headlines and page layout) might form the local news team. Assessing each group as one entity instead of individually increases the interdependence.

Cooperative skills are needed for students to succeed in these areas of the learning program:

• Forming groups
• Working as a group
• Problem solving/ making decisions
• Managing differences

A cohesive classroom culture is more likely to evolve if everyone employs cooperative and collaborative approaches in classroom interactions.

An involvement in decision making

If we want students to become responsible for their own learning, we need to help them to learn decision-making skills.

Ways of making decisions about learning in classrooms can be considered as a continuum:

Making decisions about learning in the classroom

Adapted from Mark Collis and Joan Dalton (1991) Becoming Responsible Learners

While teachers use all of the styles on occasions, the shared ownership style is the one which supports students to learn the skills necessary for assuming responsibility over their own learning. This is also known as negotiation.

Students might be involved in making decisions about these aspects of the learning program:

• the learning goals
• the content
• how the learning might be achieved
• when the learning might take place
• what the outcome / product might be
• how the learning might be assessed

Teachers involve individuals, small groups and the whole class in decision-making processes and problem solving activities. The skills that students need to practice might differ according to the situation. Jeanne Gibbs (1995) explains that

• Decisions are judgements made concerning information as perceived by an individual or a group
• Problems are dilemmas, intricate issues and predicaments that need to be analysed in order to reach a solution.

Useful strategies include

• defining the problem, situation or concern
• brainstorming to generate possible ideas
• thinking the situation through - clarifying, criticising, confirming and elaborating ideas — organising information — seeing consequences - seeing the issue from both sides
• reaching consensus if this is a group activity
• forming action plans or contracts which state What? Who? By When?
• evaluating the outcomes.

Class meetings held on a regular basis provide authentic ways of making whole class decisions and solving problems. Gibbs suggests that the more the students are involved in defining a solution to a problem, the more likely they are to accept responsibility to make the solution work.

A belief that reflection leads towards the improvement of learning

Our beliefs underpin our own learning and teaching practices. By valuing, modelling and practising reflective strategies ourselves, we are able to make the processes and reasons for reflection explicit to our students. In essence, reflection is thinking - about what we’ve done, what we’ve tried to do. and how we feel about what we’ve done. (Davies et al. 1992) It is one of the three Key Learning Processes in English.

We provide children with valuable insights when we encourage them to think and talk about the ways in which they learn. They become more independent, self motivated and take greater responsibility for their own learning. Reflection, however, requires time for demonstration, guidance, practice, reward and recognition of achievement. It is advisable to vary the methods chosen on an individual, group and whole class basis. A combination of spoken, visual and even kinaesthetic strategies is more effective than just writing.

A clear set of expectations, goals, learning outcomes

Time spent at the beginning of each year to establish consistent routines and procedures is time well spent. Students appreciate the security of knowing what is expected of them. Ensure that they also know the consequences of not following procedures.

Develop a shared set of class rules in negotiation with students:

• Initiate class discussion. e.g. How would you like other people to treat you in our room?
• Try to list students’ suggestions in positive ways. We care for other people’s property.
• Help students to evaluate their suggestions. Is that fair to everyone?
• Keep rules simple, few in number and display them in the classroom.
• Revisit the rules from time to time. Which things are working well? What do we need to work on?

From Mark Collis and Joan Dalton (1991)

Student and teacher reflection often leads to the development of individual, group and class goals. Parents too, might be involved in goal setting activities.

An interesting program centred around three way conferences of parents, children and teachers has been presented by Anne Davies et al (1992) in Together is Better: Collaborative Assessment, Evaluation and Reporting. While the book has been written for primary teachers, secondary school teachers will find some sections useful for establishing goals and conducting conferences with students about their learning.

All goals negotiated with students need to be clearly defined, few in number and achievable. Individual, group and class goals might be set. Some teachers use a think aloud process with the construction of class goals, which also provides students with models for individual and group goal setting.

Establish specific goals with students:

• Create awareness of the reasons for goals. Our goal for working in groups this morning is … because …
• Begin with short term goals. Help students to think about how much time the task will take, then set clear time limits.
• Set clear expectations and help students plan their time constructively. These are our learning challenges for today — which one will you do first? … second? … third?
• Decide upon assessment criteria. How will we know if we are successful in reaching our goal? Let’s list two things that will show us that.
• Make use of written plans and time lines. Ensure that goals are realistic and achievable. Divide them into practical steps that the students understand and can manage.
• Progressively increase students’ involvement in setting goals. Begin with teacher direction and limited child input, then joint negotiation, leading towards child initiated goal setting.

Make students accountable for their choices:

• Introduce choices gradually. You may use a learning centre Scott, or work on your research when you have finished reading.
• Involve students increasingly in making choices. Which materials will you use to build your model, Jacqui? When you finish this, what would you like to do?
• Frame consequences in positive language. Consider the difference between: If you don’t finish writing your story Charles, you won’t have time to play Word Bingo. And, When you finish writing your story Charles, you will have time to play Word Bingo.
• Relate the choices students make directly to the consequences. I notice your chart still needs a lot of work, Heather. You can choose to finish it now, or you can choose to finish it at lunchtime.
• Follow consequences through consistently. Remember that it is the certainty that the consequence will be followed through, rather than the severity of the consequence that brings about changes in behaviour.

Adapted from Collis and Dalton (1991)

Setting goals for the completion of tasks, goals to reach specific learning outcomes and goals for behaviour increase students’ responsibility for their own learning. When these are supported by teachers’ high expectations, clear explanations, achievable targets and constructive planning students improve their own learning outcomes.

A provision for constructive feedback

Giving feedback is a skill that requires practice and takes time to develop. It is integrated into each day’s teaching and learning program and practised by students, teachers and, ideally, parents, too. Constructive feedback is linked to the goals previously negotiated by teacher and students.

Teachers provide incidental feedback to individuals and small groups throughout each learning activity. Sometimes they record comments while students work. (Sticky notepads are useful for this purpose. ) Students also give feedback on their own efforts, as well as on products, presentations and performances created by others. Reflective journals and proformas, which identify specific skills, help students to provide constructive comments.

The knowledge of children’s development in cognitive, physical, social and emotional areas provides teachers with frameworks for feedback. In addition to giving feedback on what students learned, the processes of how they learned are monitored too.

Providing positive feedback to individuals helps to avoid fears of rejection, neglect and isolation. While students need to feel that they belong to a group, they need to feel accepted as individuals, too.

Students give feedback about the use of specific skills and processes. It is advisable to provide students with structured approaches and to vary the forms of response.

Teachers, too, seek feedback from others: students, colleagues and parents might make comments that lead towards improvements in the teaching and learning program.

Walker and Brown (1994) have some practical strategies for classroom implementation. They suggest that teachers

• focus on observing and giving feedback to two or three students each day
• record children’s development in relation to developmental pathways
• be active listeners and provide children with incidental feedback
• develop encouraging, inviting language that turns negatives into positives
• make time for students to practice reflection
• consistently model positive feedback
• provide opportunities for constructive peer feedback as well as teacher feedback

A teacher’s authenticity, energy and interest

A teacher’s authenticity, energy, and interest influence the learning environment and affect students’ participation in the English program. An enthusiasm for teaching and learning, an approachable, friendly manner, and a sense of humour are qualities that engage and motivate students of all ages.

Building conditions that provide opportunities for students to experiment and take risks without fear of ridicule is an important part of English teaching.

Through our interaction with texts, we explore other people’s inner thoughts, we watch others build and destroy relationships and we discover more about ourselves. If teachers create inclusive classroom conditions, students will feel free to reveal individual responses. Sharing tentative thoughts and feelings in a supportive environment encourages the kinds of discussion and intellectual exploration of ideas that lead to personal growth.

When students are taught to collaborate, negotiate, and reflect upon their learning in English, they develop decision-making skills and become responsible for their own life-long learning.

A well organised physical environment

Some teachers are limited by the structural constraints within the confines of a particular room, some share open areas, while others might migrate from one multi-purpose room to another during the course of a day. Never the less, the ways in which teachers organise and use the spaces within which they work affect the ways in which students respond.

Planning the use of physical spaces includes

• the arrangement of the furniture
• the availability and use of resources
• the purpose and presentation of displays

The arrangement of furniture

Plan ways for using the available space to

• conduct class meetings
• work in small groups
• read independently
• use a CD ROM on computer
• observe a performance
• share a class poem
• jointly construct a letter
• form value lines or inside-outside circles

Many teachers set up cooperative groups of desks around the perimeter of the classroom space and use the central area as a sharing circle for focused whole class demonstrations, presentations and meetings. It is advisable to plan to cater for a variety of teaching and learning activities with a minimum of reorganisation. Students might be involved in decisions about the arrangement of furniture within parameters set first by the teacher.

Photos and interviews with teachers provide examples of and reasons for the ways in which they have organised their classrooms. In particular, Judy Wiggins and Kate Northam and Elizabeth Robinson explain how they have rearranged traditional high school classrooms to make them better places for students to learn.

The availability and use of resources

There are constraints concerning the availability and use of resources of which teachers will be only too well aware. Working within the confines of the budget, teachers should aim for

• A print rich environment.

Reading is encouraged if students have easy access to a wide range of texts including

• classic, contemporary and popular literature,
• print media texts such as newspapers, magazines
• everyday texts such as informational texts, pamphlets, brochures, forms
• collections of students’ writing including anthologiesand negotiated studies from previous years and from other schools.

• Materials for the creation of texts.

Students enjoy experimenting with the presentation of written work. Unusual and interesting methods of publication appeal to most age groups. Models and 3D representations of visual texts might form the basis of stop-start animation work.

A list of materials for use in English might include

• paper, cardboard in a variety of sizes and colours, butchers paper, tracing paper etc
• textas, pencils, crayons, paint
• glue, scissors, compasses, rulers, lettering sets
• model making equipment - plasticine, straws, icypole sticks etc.

• Learning technologies.

Students become familiar with the operating techniques of learning technologies if they are easily available. Students’ engagement with the wide range of texts used in current English programs is facilitated by their easy access. Obviously, expensive equipment often needs to be shared, but a list of desirable items might include

• a TV and video recorder
• a video camera
• a number of computers
• an overhead projector
• a radio-CD-tape recorder and set of listening posts
• an epidiascope (These might still be found, often covered with dust, in school store rooms. Teachers are beginning to use them to share visual texts with larger groups of students.)
• a slide projector

• Storage facilities

Facilities for both teachers and students to store materials and work in progress assist a smooth start to each lesson and the transition from one activity to the next.

Storage facilities for teachers might include

• shelving to house activity boxes for learning centres
• a filing system for large posters and charts
• filing cabinets for student records, activity cards and sheets

Storage facilities for students might include

• places for storing students’ personal belongings
• a large cabinet for unfinished charts, posters and diagrams
• drawers or boxes for writing folders, reading files and other record keeping mechanisms

The purpose and presentation of displays

Displays contribute to the creation of a friendly, welcoming environment. Exhibitions of student work send the message that the work is valued, not only by the teacher, but also by their peers. Some of the other messages that students receive from wall and ceiling displays are that print and visual texts may be useful, interesting, amusing and informative. They might become involved in making decisions about the use of wall and ceiling space and assist with the establishment and maintenance of displays. All displays should be changed regularly and ones that are directly related to student learning should be placed around the room at the students’ eye level.

Displays might include texts created or chosen

by individuals and groups of students

• poems, letters, stories and responses to literature including plot profiles, story maps and sociograms
• posters, charts, diagrams, tables, graphs, mind and concept maps, Venn diagrams
• reading lists, Book of the Week selected and reviewed by students.

to model aspects of print or visual texts

• exemplary items discovered during the teaching and learning program
• other items of particular interest to students or teacher
• annotated student work samples
• teacher demonstrations

to present information

• instructions for learning centres
• class lists collated from group discussions
• steps in the writing process
• ideas for writing
• titles of authors and books students have enjoyed
• roles for working in groups
• ways of demonstrating attentive listening
• criteria and standards for English syllabuses

to organise individuals and groups

• homework tasks and schedules
• dates for the completion of assignments
• class rights, rules and responsibilities
• reminders, messages

to celebrate the successes of individuals or groups

• certificates, stickers, notes from other teachers or classes
• articles about class members cut from newspapers and magazines

to amuse, entertain or interest

• jokes, riddles, cartoons
• mottoes and quotations
• posters
• articles or pictures from newspapers and magazines

Adapted from Janet Rickwood and Jenni Strapa (1989)

References

Mark Collis and Joan Dalton (1991) Becoming Responsible Learners: Strategies for positive classroom management Eleanor Curtain

Joan Dalton and Julie Boyd (1992) I Teach Eleanor Curtain

Anne Davies, Caren Cameron, Colleen Politano, Kathleen Gregory (1992) Together is Better: Collaborative Assessment, Evaluation and Reporting Eleanor Curtain

Bobbi Fisher (1995) Thinking and Learning Together: Curriculum and Community in a Primary Classroom Heinemann

Jeanne Gibbs (1987) Tribes; a process for social development and cooperative learning Publisher’s Press

Jeanne Gibbs (1995) Tribes: A new Way of Learning and Being Together Center Source Systems

Susan Hill and Tim Hill (1990) The Collaborative Classroom: A guide to cooperative learning Eleanor Curtain

Susan Hill and Jane O’Loughlin (1995) BookTalk : Collaborative Responses to Literature Eleanor Curtain

Robert McGregor (1989) Working Together: The Cooperative English Classroom Thomas Nelson

Janet Rickwood and Jenni Satrapa (1989) When It’s Fun You Learn: Organising for learning in the secondary English classroom A.A.T.E.

Marion Russell (ed.) (1995) Key Literacy: Planning and programming for literacy equity Curriculum Corporation

Dot Walker and Pamela Brown (1994) Pathways to Cooperation: Starting Points for Cooperative Learning Eleanor Curtain

Jeni Wilson and Peter Egeberg (1990) Cooperative Challenges and Student Investigations Thomas Nelson

Jeni Wilson and Lesley Wing Jan (1993) Thinking for Themselves: Developing Strategies for Reflective Learning Eleanor Curtain