Display Classroom Expectation Posters This School Year

Having strong classroom expectations at the beginning of the school year is so very important. So why not display them with eye-catching posters? If students forget an expectation or if you need to conduct a mini-lesson targeted toward the expectations that need attention, you can just point to the posters.

Setting Classroom Expectations

I can tell you from experience that your year will be less stressful if students know what your expectations are from day one. One of the obvious expectations you might have is how your students should enter/leave the classroom. 

Remember that your classroom expectations are what you want to happen in the room. So they should be written in a positive tone and not filled with lots of "do nots." Think about what a learning environment looks like on the best possible day and write the expectations to help everyone achieve that.

After you have come up with your expectations, then involve your students. Ask them to brainstorm ideas for their own classroom expectations. This will allow your students to take ownership over their environment and will show them you value their thoughts. Just like you, I’m sure your students have expectations as well. Together you and your students can collaborate on all classroom expectations.  It’s possible that your students will come up with the same expectations you did. Once all classroom expectations are in place, make sure you hold your students accountable to them.

Creating Classroom Expectation Posters in Google Slides

Click HERE to download
the How-To Guide.

It’s important to come up with some sort of visual display for your classroom expectations. This is where Google Slides comes in handy. It is so very easy to create classroom expectation posters with Google Slides. Refer to this Make Posters in Google Slides How-To Guide to see how simple it really is. The guide contains three steps: 1) Set Up Your Poster; 2) Design Your Poster; and 3) Print, Share, or Embed Your Poster. Google Slides will allow you to make your posters artistic and professional. Even your students can join in on creating the posters.

Once your posters are created, you have the option of printing them, sharing them with parents or via Google Classroom, or embedding them on your Google Site. 

If you want to see some sample PDF versions of posters I created, click on the links below:

• Be Kind and Respectful to Others – PDF link
• Listen While Others Are Speaking – PDF link
• Raise Your Hand to Speak – PDF link

Another idea is to create a pledge that your students will sign acknowledging that they will follow all classroom expectations. Check out the pledge I created below in Google Drawings.

It’s Powerful

It’s powerful to be able to refer to a visual representation of the classroom expectations and remind students they were involved in the creation of them as well. What do you do when it comes to classroom expectations? What benefits do see for visually displaying them in the classroom and having students contribute their expectations? Share in the comments below.

Restorative Discipline

“One of our students wrote some unflattering things about another student,” said the principal. “Since this is happening on student-owned devices, we don’t have much control over it. They are using something called YikYak.” John, a sixth grader at Generations Middle School in West Central ISD in Texas, avoided the protections the Technology Department had put in place. While some technicians supported geo-fencing, the superintendent decided to try a new approach he had heard another large urban middle school relied on. 

Restorative Justice (a.k.a. Restorative Discipline)

Restorative justice is a theory that empowers students to resolve conflicts on their own and/or in small groups. It's a growing practice at schools around the country. Ideally, the idea is to bring students together in small groups with their peers to talk, ask questions, and air their grievances.

Restorative discipline requires students to talk out problems and seek their resolution. This most often involves them sitting in a circle with everyone involved. The end goal is a campus culture that fosters relationships that can head off conflict. The main target of these approaches has been middle schools. The reason why is that students are considered to be in their roughest developmental period. As a result, middle school students tend to act out more. (Source: San Antonio Teachers Warm to New Approach)

The Goals of Restorative Justice

Restorative justice’s three main goals, according to the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, are: 

1. Accountability. Restorative justice strategies provide opportunities for wrongdoers to be accountable to those they have harmed, and enable them to repair the harm they caused to the extent possible.
2. Community safety. Restorative justice recognizes the need to keep the community safe through strategies that build relationships and empower the community to take responsibility for the well-being of its members.
3. Competency development. Restorative justice seeks to increase the pro-social skills of those who have harmed others, address underlying factors that lead youth to engage in delinquent behavior, and build on strengths in each young person.
   (Source: Implementing Restorative Justice) 
   

Identifying Your Campus’ Need for Restorative Justice

Does your school need restorative justice? If digital citizenship is once a year practice, your campus may be due for a rise in inappropriate actions due to the ubiquity of smartphones and other WiFi enabled devices that bypass school content filtering.

Here is a quick checklist to determine if you have a need to implement restorative discipline approach in your school: 

1. You realize that zero tolerance approach has been ineffective in your school. Suspensions, expulsions, and arrests have risen and your efforts have been unsuccessful in controlling them.
2. Your school community (e.g. students, parents, teachers, others) are unhappy with your school’s approach to discipline.
3. You realize that your current staff is unable to handle the load.
4. All staff express a general lack of knowledge on how to deal with issues as they arise. 
   

Dealing with Dastardly Digital Deeds

School districts, like Ed White Middle School in Northside ISD in San Antonio, Texas, are already relying on restorative discipline to address dastardly digital deeds (Read evaluation of the approach at White MS). The main approaches for restorative justice include (Source):

1. Engage with all stakeholders to explain the benefits of restorative justice.
2. Provide professional learning opportunities on restorative discipline to all stakeholders.
3. Deal with conflicts using the “Ignore and walk away” approach.
4. Form a circle to deal with inappropriate actions to talk it out.
5. Prepare to allocate time to accommodate circle discussions. These can take a few minutes or up to an hour.
6. Be consistent in the application and use of restorative discipline strategies and circles.
7. Assist students in learning how to facilitate classroom circles.
8. Practice restorative justice coaching conversations and classroom circles often with everyone.
9. Hire a restorative justice coordinator. This position would be in addition to your school counselor (or not depending on your needs). 
   

Connect

A final point to consider: Restorative discipline has been around for a few years. You can now find Professional Learning networks (PLNs) on social media outlets such as Twitter. These educators are having active conversations via Twitterchats. To learn more about restorative discipline, try joining the conversation.