Embodying values/community agreements as living documents to enhance commitment/ownership
just presenting students (or anyone you are collaborating with) with a list of requirements or statutes like in a policy paper does not create a sense of ownership. It is a static declaration of principle, less an invitation for students to participate in the process of upholding certain values, incorporating them, and keeping them alive. Instead of values as a list of bullet points on a piece of paper, think of it as a verb. What are the specific actions to keep this principle alive? What would specifically harm this principle and how can we collectively be accountable for that? Prepare ahead of time: What do we do (collectively and as an overall-responsible facilitator) when the rules of engagement are broken? Do you have a procedure for repair/rectifying the issue, tackle it together?
Co-Creating Agreements
Exercise: Creating a brave space
You need this exercise when: You want to define your values and commitments for the classroom. In this exercise, a group identifies values necessary to have a space that allows everyone to learn, defines what actions are necessary to put these values into place and what concrete actions could violate these values. When this is done, you decide on a first set of methods on how to counter violations of the principles (example: when somebody takes up too much space, ignores somebody else’s contributions, or is working in a non-collaborative manner, you agree to address this collectively in the classroom, have one person take them aside, or end/start a class with a dedicated conversation by coming back to the agreement/ on how to repair the situation/prevent this in the future). In the end, you have a mechanism in place to keep the space according to the class agreement.
For: any group of students, depending on the level of complexity of values
Time: 40-60 minutes, recurring conversations of a set timeframe (decide for example: when it needs to be re-addressed, we will take a minimum of 15 minutes to talk about the issue and rectify the situation according to the agreement)
Instructions: let students rally around the values they gravitate towards that are important to them too. Let them free-write for five minutes, then split them into groups of four based on these shared values. Let them discuss/brainstorm in break-out sessions for about 15 minutes, and agree on three actions each that are suited to honor this value, three actions that could violate the principles. Collect answers, write them on a white board/ add sticky notes as actions towards each value on a large sheet of paper that either will remain in the classroom for the entire semester and/or is tagged on the virtual learning platform. This is the foundation of the class’s collective agreement that people can go back to as a reference in case any of those principles is violated. (structure of the exercise inspired by Dotmocracy, Teaching Community Tech)
Exercise: building/co-creating a collective community agreement
A community agreement is a set of rules about how to interact with each other (we learned how to set up fruitful braver spaces from Em Panetta, PhD student in Science and Technology Studies at York University in Toronto): to enhance the level of ownership, students and teachers can co-write a protocol with the values and principles/rules of engagement to ensure commitment). In addition to the values and actions identified and articulated, fully flesh out an agreement in written form.
Co-Creating a story for your lesson plan
Identify the most important topics, themes, and structural elements of your class. Write them down and explain them briefly in class. To engage your students, run a quick survey and ask everybody to give their preferences/multiple votes for the topics/sessions they are most interested in/curious to learn. Like that, you get a feeling of what the people in front of you are interested in and you can use that curiosity to incorporate it into a narrative that connects the sessions, strings them together, and build on that. Also, this check-in will let you know what sessions will need additional engagement exercises when people are not already excited about them.
