Community Guidelines

Time:

• Plan: 5 min
• Implementation: 10 min

Type(s) of Essential:

Prerequisite:

• None

Overview

Learners and educators collaborate to define guidelines for how to treat each other and use digital tools during the session.

Our Essentials in this Activity

Learners and educators identify the social practices and behaviors needed in order to conduct and complete activities and collaborate with peers on design projects. By formulating community guidelines and adhering to them collectively, learners become familiar with and utilize skills related to responsible decision-making, emotional regulation, relationship building, open-mindedness, and social awareness.

Goals and Outcomes

Goal: To develop a set of shared principles that learners and educators use to guide interactions and working behavior during the session.

Outcomes: Learners are more aware of respectful ways to engage with peers during collaborative and large group activities (i.e. listening, turn taking, etc.), strategies that support self-regulation, and approaches to resolving conflicts.

Materials

Dry erase board and compatible writing instrument or a digital collaborative tool that is accessible for the learners (e.g., Google Doc, Padlet, etc.)

Preparation

For the dry erase board, write at the top “Community Guidelines” or another phrase suitable for learners.

For a digital collaborative tool, create a blank slide, document, or board that is titled “Community Guidelines” or another title more appropriate for learners.

Implementation and Completion

Begin by informing learners the collective will establish community guidelines for how to treat each other as a community as they work in groups, resolve conflicts and self-regulate, and utilize digital and online tools. These guidelines will be a reference point the remainder of the session. As a large group, brainstorm expectations.

If using a digital collaborative, learners can add their own responses. Once the learners complete adding their responses, review each guideline when they’ve completed their response.

For a dry erase board, an educator can write the guidelines as learners share their guidelines and ask them to give examples of the guidelines they share. Keep this board in an easy to display area.

Some guidelines your community may generate include:

• Listening to someone when they are presenting and sharing information
• Turn taking
• Be kind to and respect everyone
• Have fun

Review the guidelines each day, and add more if learners and educators have suggestions. Educators should follow and model these guidelines with the learners.