Teach Like Finland: 33 Simple Strategies for Joyful Classrooms pdfdrive com

Anchor charts: A sensible starting place is the creation of rules, made by the
teacher and the students. I’ve worked with each of my groups of students (in
America and Finland) to craft a list of classroom rules, guided by the Responsive
Classroom approach. The process is simple: typically during that first or second
week of school, I solicit their ideas for shared classroom expectations and then
guide them to whittle down a (usually) long list of rules to just a few overarching
precepts. Typically, our rules boil down to three things: respect yourself, respect
others, and respect the environment. While it’s useful to have only three rules
(it’s easy to remember), I’ve often found that my students, even upper
elementary ones, benefit from creating “anchor charts” together, which further
flesh out the rules. The purpose of an anchor chart is to make classroom
expectations clear as day by describing specific actions each student can take
toward a particular goal, such as listening well, or, for the sake of this strategy,
preserving a peaceful learning environment.
To make an anchor chart with your students, you need about ten to fifteen
minutes for a discussion, a sheet of paper (or poster board), and something to
write with. The layout is straightforward: the intended goal is at the top of the
paper, and several questions are printed, which guide the discussion. The teacher
can solicit ideas from students and write them down throughout the session. The
purpose of this exercise is to get students to identify the characteristics of a
peaceful learning environment. Once an anchor chart is made, the teacher and
students can refer to it throughout the year. Here’s an example:

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The Peaceful Classroom
What does it look like?
Student A: “It’s not messy. It’s
organized.”
What does it sound like?
Student B: “It’s quiet.”
What does it feel like?
Student C: “Cozy.”
Noise meter: Creating common expectations around this idea of a peaceful
learning environment (though rules and an anchor chart) is important, but it’s
likely that our students will need ongoing feedback to know how they’re doing,
especially regarding minimizing background noise. One idea is that the class
could have its own student-made “noise meter” prominently displayed at the
front of the classroom, which teachers and students could regularly use to
indicate the noise level of the classroom. I’m imagining that it would be best to
get students to take ownership of this aspect, because from my own experience
it’s tempting for the teacher to assume the role of regulating the sound. And
when this happens, students don’t learn to self-regulate because they begin to
depend on the teacher to intervene when they’re too noisy.