Building Classroom Culture Toolkit

Culture is a “school’s personality”—a personality that affects not only instruction but also morale, efficiency, and outcomes. Culture influences student achievement, collegiality, shared values, decision making, risk taking, trust, openness, parent relations, leadership, communication, socialization, and organizational hierarchy. (Gruenert and Whitaker). It is the “hidden curriculum” (Jerald) that is an influential factor for higher student achievement. Focusing on creating a culture of thinkers also gives students a sense of purpose, a dedication to promoting equity, commitment, engagement, challenge, and a connection to learning and to each other. After reflecting, reading, and learning from other people (much smarter than myself), I realized that building classroom culture whether online or face-to-face, it comes down to 5 basic conditions - building relationships, building a community, building routines and procedures, building a common learning space, and building an attitude of gratitude filled with celebrations. Here is a pdf of the notable slides in a presentation I did on this very topic https://bit.ly/CultureSlidesLEE2020. Always learning, Myla * Check out my other collection of resources for teaching/facilitating remote or distance learning. https://bit.ly/RemoteTEACH