Element 5: The Journey

There are 5 Elements to an Agile Classroom. This post will describe the Fifth Element, ‘The Journey’.Growing an Agile Classroom where students are learning iteratively in self is a journey. In any journey, it is useful to have a map. Just as map uses the degrees of latitude and longitude, an Agile Classroom uses the…

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Learning Alliance Activity: My World Map

This is the third post in the series of how to Design the Learning Alliance for an Agile Classroom. Through Designing the Learning Alliance, we put ‘Classroom Culture before Covering Content’. Trust Begins With Knowing One Another  We all say we want a culture of trust in our classroom. Trust between the teacher and students.Trust…

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Design the Learning Alliance: The Why

When we see students not behaving in the way we desire, we naturally focus more on classroom management practices. Careful. This paradoxically increases the poor behavior we do not want. By managing student behavior more, we reduce students’ ability to self-regulate and self-correct. Increasing classroom management and behavioral interventions, although sometimes needed, treats the symptoms…

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Element 1: The Visible Classroom

The Visible Classroom is the first element, and often the first step, in implementing an Agile Classroom. The Visible Classroom designs the learning environment for clarity, transparency, accountability, feedback, and adaptability. It gives a classroom a set of highly visible and dynamic artifacts called Learning Radiators that support and mediate learning. Once learning and expectations…

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Empowerment Is

Empowerment is… not a transfer of power, you do not give up anything. It is the granting of power to the learning relationship, which grows the power of the whole classroom.

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Values Discovery

Learning Alliance Designing The Learning AlliancePreviously, we introduced you to Designing the Learning Alliance to set the stage for a culture of empowerment, collaboration, and achievement.  Designing Classroom Values Let’s start Designing the Alliance with creating a classroom culture based on shared values. Designing a values based classroom culture has 2 parts, Values DIscovery and…

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Designing The Learning Alliance

Where to Start? I am often asked, where do you start in growing a self-organizing classroom? More than likely, you are already doing it. Many teachers post positive expectations in the classroom or door and you go over classroom and school rules with your students during the first week or two of school. You are…

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