Student Contributor: C. Glanville
Pick a variety of classroom jobs, where students can contribute to your classroom and be responsible for something. For example, Teachers Assistant, Paper Collector, Line Leader, Caboose, Lights, etc. These class jobs rotate weekly so that everyone gets a chance to do them.
This tool is supportive because it gives students the opportunity to have responsibilities. Students also help regulate each other and hold each other accountable. When first introducing this tool to your classroom, it would be important to give clear expectations to students about what each of the jobs would look like. It would also be important to note that holding each other accountable is different than being bossy and mean. Personally, we rotate jobs every Monday. There are some weeks where students don’t have a job, because there are 15 students and only 12 jobs. This rotation also ensures that every student will get a chance to try every job at least once during the school year, most likely a couple times.
I have found this tool to be a great way for students to take responsibility and ownership for their classroom. I think this also builds students up a little bit, because they know their jobs is important and they feel accomplished when they do a good job on their position that week.
This is in the supportive phase of management because students are continuing throughout the year to take ownership and responsibility of what goes on in their class, and how smoothly it runs. Class jobs happen every week over the school year, so students also get multiple attempts and fresh starts to be responsible each week. This could relate to the preventative phase because by giving students jobs each week, they won’t be arguing over who should collect the papers in the classroom, turn off the lights, etc. By also giving the expectations for how we hold each other accountable, you are also setting the expectation for how we treat our classmates. This best fits with a Student Centered/Collaborative influence because students are responsible for their jobs each week, but the teacher rotates the jobs and also might be holding students accountable when they forget their job.
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Tool Source: This came from my mentor teacher
We use classroom jobs in our fourth-grade class. The jobs we have are messenger, garbage, door holder, paper passers, and basket holders. We switch jobs each week so that everyone gets a chance to do each job. The only downside to the frequent change is that occasionally the students will forget their job. To improve that, consider making the jobs and names bigger. We have the names on clothespins and are hard to read from a distance. Having the students move their names to their job can also help them remember their job because now they get a physical, visual, and auditory connection to their job. Setting up and switching roles does not take up more than five minutes a week to do. Having the students help out in the classroom builds responsibility and pride in the class. The classroom jobs also help some procedures happen faster, like passing out papers.
I used this tool within an Urban Kindergarten class. I was hoping for this tool to help give students more opportunities to work together to support our whole class. This also is great to help students have responsibility for their space, papers, and property that they may bring to school (jackets, backpacks, headphones, hats, etc.). Our jobs change every week as well. There are some jobs that are done throughout the day, such as holding the door open. These students during “jobs time” toward the end of the day typically choose another job to aid. For example, the door holder may choose to help with cleaning up the floor during “job time” or help fix the library bookshelves. I know many teachers have their students choose their jobs in different ways. Our class gets to choose, from a wheel with their names. The person whose name the wheel lands on gets to choose, and then their name is removed from the wheel. This tool is great to bring your class together, teach responsibility within different aspects of the classroom/school, as well as keep your classroom tidy at the same time.
I tried testing this tool in a Kindergarten classroom with 21 students in a suburban area. The jobs my mentor teacher and I implemented were: door holder, line leader, lunch bucket carriers, paper passer, garbage collectors & messenger. Each week the students rotate jobs, and it’s helped students have a sense of responsibility in the classroom. Since implementing this tool students have held each other accountable for completing their jobs, taken responsibility for wanting to do their assigned job, and eliminated “unfairness” in randomly selecting students for jobs before implementation. The rotation for the jobs is posted on the wall for students to see, therefore students can see what job they currently have and what job they will be getting next. Since creating this visual for students’ there has been an increased amount of excitement from students in looking at what their next responsibility will be. We have been able to make a connection for students to the real world, in how one day they will have a job they are responsible for, similar to the jobs we have in the classroom.