A question was posed to us today in class: What has been your experience with group norms?
When hearing answers to the question, I thought the different interpretations were interesting. The question was purposely left vague. Some people applied it to social situations, while others applied it to classroom rules and expectations. In this context I thought it worked well, and I liked hearing the different points of views. I am left wondering though, if you are working with younger children, if the question is too vague, might you end up with a number of students not knowing what to do or say?
I interpreted the question to mean group norms are classroom expectations. I connected this to what I have done in the past as a 5th grade teacher. In 5th grade part of the curriculum is U. S history. I would give a mini-lesson briefly overviewing the U.S constitution, participants, why it came about… then we made a classroom constitution which was our group norms. This was great because it made it clear to the students that they are not doing this just because they are kids and they have to have rules. Everyone has to have rules! And it tied into our social studies curriculum, which is a way to integrate, which is a way to use time effectively.
rebeccaaf 