Student Voice in a Box: Week 5

Student Voice in a Box: Week 5:

Student Voice in a Box: Week 5

Setting up a Student Voice Friendly Classroom Environment

When setting up your classroom to be as conducive to student voices as possible, it’s good to set clear guidelines for what is expected of students and for teachers. Student Voice has put together an example set of guidelines — take a look and adapt these to your classrooms as you see fit!

Check out the Student Expectations.

Check out the Teacher Expectations.

Polling your students

Two weeks ago we interviewed Ryan Heisinger (@RyanHeisinger), who told us about how he surveys his students every quarter. Ryan asks his students to assess his performance as a teacher and give him feedback. He then asks his students to assess their own performance as students and set personal goals for improving themselves in the next quarter.

This method is powerful in encouraging students to share their opinions about the class. By actually taking his students’ advice and setting goals for himself, Ryan demonstrates that students can have an impact in their classrooms and that teachers care about what they think.

This is particularly helpful when the students are critiquing setting goals for themselves. By setting a standard for accepting candid feedback and acting on it, Ryan inspires his students to do the same.

Ryan has been very generous to share with us three documents from his classroom:

1. A survey he gives to his students to get to know a little bit more about their backgrounds and interests: View the PDF
2. A survey his students complete to evaluate their performance during a particular quarter: Download as .DOC orView the PDF
3. A document about creating a strong classroom culture and positive learning environment: Download as .DOC orView the PDF

Click here to check out our interview with Ryan.

---

Class Projects This Week

Interconnected Campus

Connections are everything — especially when its across disciplines. An engineer who understands design will be more successful than an engineer who doesn’t. An architect who can build a study and beautiful building will be more successful than the one who can’t make something beautiful. These cross-discipinary connections should start happening in schools to prepare students for the real world.

Take a look at the Interconnected Campus.

Class Project: Stand-Up Comedy

Stand-up comedy is certainly an unorthodox type of project to bring into the classroom, and it certainly is not easy to do! Neverthless, it can be an excellent way to help students build their confidence, and to express their voice by delivering social commentary in an accessible manner. Here’s how.

Check out the full class project description for Comedy Routines.

Class Project: Effective Fundraising

Fundraising events can be the perfect union between raising money and sending a message about a particular cause. Here are 7 ways in which students can express their voices while organizing such an event.

Check out the full class project description for Fundraising Events.

---

Join the Student Voice Educator Conversation

The Student Voice community on Blueslips.org is where teachers can discuss Student Voice best practices, exchange lesson plans, and see how other educators plan to use Student Voice in a Box in their classrooms.

See what other Student Voice Educators are doing.

Receive Student Voice in a Box in your email inbox: http://eepurl.com/LRPfH

Author - Adil Majid

Adil Majid is a senior at Carnegie Mellon University. He co-founded Student Voice in the summer of 2012 as a way to combat the exclusion of students from the education reform conversation. He enjoys discussing politics, playing chess, and is an avid reader. You can follow his thoughts on Twitter at @adilmajid.

THIS ENTRY WAS POSTED IN STUDENT VOICE IN A BOX.