Classroom Norms

The following examples (adapted from Stanford’s Center for Teaching and Learning) can be included in a syllabus and/or shared with students at the beginning of term.

• Share responsibility for including all voices in the conversation. If you tend to have a lot to say, make sure you leave sufficient space to hear from others. If you tend to stay quiet in group discussions, challenge yourself to contribute so others can learn from you. 
• Listen respectfully and actively. Don’t interrupt, turn to technology, or engage in private conversations while others are speaking. Use attentive, courteous body language. Comments that you make (whether asking for clarification, sharing critiques, or expanding on a point) should reflect that you have paid attention to the previous speakers’ comments. Ask questions when you don’t understand something.
• Be open to changing your perspectives based on what you learn from others. Try to explore new ideas and possibilities. Think critically about the factors that have shaped your perspectives.  Seriously consider points-of-view that differ from your current thinking.
• Understand that we are bound to make mistakes in this space, as anyone does when approaching complex tasks or learning new skills. Strive to see your mistakes and others’ as valuable elements of the learning process, not as flaws to be called out or punished. 
• Observe confidentiality / non-attribution. You are welcome to discuss the content of course discussions outside of class, but you should not attribute ideas to a specific student without their consent.
• Criticize ideas, not people. It’s essential that we critique each other’s ideas without questioning anyone’s integrity or, worse, their right to participate in the conversation. If you wish to challenge something that has been said, you should challenge the idea, not the individual sharing the idea. Recognize too that individuals are so much more than any given idea that they might express in class.
• Understand that others will come to these discussions with different experiences from yours. Be careful about assumptions and generalizations you make based only on your own experience. Be open to hearing and learning from other perspectives.
• Discomfort is normal. Classroom conversations can get heated and challenging; they can also get awkwardly silent. Disagreement is a normal part of academic debate and discussions. Discomfort in the classroom isn’t necessarily a sign of anything going wrong.
• Take pair work or small group work seriously. Remember that your peers’ learning is partly dependent upon your engagement.
• Make an effort to get to know other students. Introduce yourself to students sitting near you. Refer to classmates by name and make eye contact with other students.

Be explicit that one of the skills that students are learning in your class is how to engage in academic discussions and debates. Explain clearly why you are establishing norms and how the norms will function in the class. If you want to involve students in the norm-setting process, you can present them with a list of possible norms and ask for selections, edits, and additions. You might ask students to list aspects of a previous class that functioned well, or ask them to answer a question like “how do you define respect in the context of course discussion?”

Treat norms as an integral part of the learning process, not just a set of policies to be obeyed. It is helpful to remind students of key classroom norms throughout the semester, especially at the beginning of class on days when students will discuss challenging topics. You might also post norms on the course Canvas site.

For norms to be followed, it’s helpful for students to feel a sense of buy-in and ownership. One way that students build a sense of ownership is by identifying why certain classroom norms are important to them – in other words, why those norms are valuable to uphold. Even allowing students to voice criticism or skepticism about norms can be more productive than applying those norms from the top down without open discussion. The midterm offers a useful moment for students to self-assess their participation and/or provide feedback about their sense of the class interactions and their suggestions for edits or additions to the classroom norms.

In addition to establishing classroom norms with students, you can also include specific expectations and guidelines related to discussion in your course syllabus.