Designing the Learning Alliance 2: Activities

In the last post, we shared the importance of putting Culture before Content. Agile Classrooms sets the stage to grow a positive classroom culture through a set of activities performed the first days of school called Designing the Learning Alliance. This post will outline the activities and tools we use to do so.

  1. My World Mind Map
  2. The Alliance Canvas
  3. Starting Line Agreement
  4. Finish Line Agreement

Activity: My World Mind Map
Purpose: To learn about ourselves and each other as a whole person so that we can appreciate, connect, and trust at a deeper level.
Links:

Activity: The Alliance Canvas
Purpose: To determine the values and related behaviors that are important to participants and how they will hold themselves accountable to them.
Links:
  • Article in this series descirbing activity (to be written)

Activity: Starting Line Agreement
Purpose: Make visible and explicit what it means to be ready for a particular events or activities so that the classroom is ready to learn.
Links:
  • coming soon
Activity: Finish Line Agreement
Purpose: Make visible and explicit what it means to be finished for particular events and activities. It defines what the classroom means to do to ensure a high quality learning.
Links:
  • coming soon

When and Where to Use Them

You can use the ones that are most valuable to you.
Since an Agile Classroom chunks up the class into learning cycles of 1-4 weeks, the activities become part of the learning goals for the 1st learning cycle.
The more you invest in these activities the first days of school, the greater return you will see throughout the weeks in learner’s ability to self-manage themselves, freeing you to focus on helping them learn and deepen relationships with and between your students.

These are living artifacts and should be revisited and actively used and revised throughout the learning journey. All of the activities can be used for the whole classroom, a permanent student group/team, or individual students.

Next
  • Reflect on how making our cutlure explicit and visible might help you and your classrooms.
  • Read our next post about the My World Mind Map. We will share a wonderful story of the huge impact this made on Carla, a high school student with Ashberger’s.

Thank You For Reading,

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