Student Contributor: Lara Creighton
This is a tool where you meet with each of your students every morning to check in with them on how their attitude is for the day. this could be a simple as a high five or even a talk with your class as a whole to see what they are feeling.
This tool should be used every morning of class. It is such a simple tool that you should be able to use this tool every morning.This is a very simple yet impactful tool. This tool called “morning meeting” is where you check in with each and every student in the morning, this can be as simple as a handshake a hug or even a sit town chat if time permits.
This is used in the supportive phase because It allows you to check in a see where your students are at. This supports their feelings and their safety and makes them feel included and welcomed. I put this tool in the collaborative theory connection because it involves the students and the teachers. It is the teacher job to make sure they are checking in and it is the students job to be honest and let their teacher know how they are feeling for the day.
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Tool Source: Gus Nollmeyer
My students are a group of 23 fifth graders who attend school in an urban area. I decided to use this supportive tool in two ways. It was easy to plan, but sometimes time did not allow me to do the first part of it. The first part would happen at the beginning of the day, during entry task time. I would walk around greeting every student as they worked on their tasks. If a student had a personal comment, I would chat with them individually. The second part happened daily regardless of the time; it was a ten-minute classroom meeting. This meeting allowed every student to share how they were feeling, good or bad. When I first taught them about this tool, I made sure to explain if they wanted to share something personal with me it would be during entry task time. Therefore, during our classroom morning meeting, it allowed everybody to have time to share. Students knew that if they did not want to share it was acceptable, but they still had to be respectful of each other’s feelings. One successful thing was seeing how students took this meeting very seriously and sometimes gave each other feedback.
I am placed in a 3rd-grade classroom with 17 students, 16 of whom participate in all activities, and we are located in a very suburban area. I chose the supportive strategy of morning meetings because it is important for students to have time to build their community, and it is a time that allows me to check in with students. My mentor teacher originally started doing this with her class and I have taken over and changed it ever so slightly. I notice that students share more about how they are doing when they create the prompts and greetings, so I try to let them do this as much as possible. Students also know that they can pass if they do not want to answer our daily prompt. I am really blessed with the students that I have this year, they genuinely respect and care for one another, so I never have to remind them of the expectations for making our classroom a safe environment. I am most definitely going to be using morning meetings in my future classroom, as it builds and strengthens a positive classroom culture.