Setting the Stage - Option 2

Overview

Setting the Stage: Overview (Fisk)
Starting the year with non-threatening and engaging activities that incorporate the norms and expectations of a model based classroom is essential to help my students feel comfortable in this unfamiliar environment.  Establishing a classroom culture to support modeling is as much about students unlearning what they have come to expect in the classroom, as it is teaching them more effective ways to engage with their learning and each other.  These first several lessons help my students understand that a modeling classroom is not a place where they will be passive repositories of teacher dictated knowledge. Nor will it be an environment where their ideas are judged as right or wrong.  Rather, students should come to understand that their ideas about what they observe as they actively engage with their environment are what is most important.  They should feel comfortable with the fact that their ideas will (and should) change and deepen as part of the challenging process developing models to explain the phenomena they observe.  These initial lessons also help my students discover how valuable teamwork is in this process as they develop skills to more effectively share ideas with one another.  When my students embrace this new way of doing business in the classroom, it is incredible to watch as they deeply engage with the material and collectively take control of their learning throughout the year.
 
The following lessons are the general sequence I follow to develop this modeling culture in my classroom.  This sequence takes me 2-2 ½ weeks within a traditional schedule of 52 minute classes.  I have included notes about when I introduce and use several of the MBER strategies.  I find it very helpful to revisit similar team and culture building activities to start the second semester since I have a lot of student movement between my classes.