Last Tuesday I started my first class as a M.Ed student. The first class is called Positive Classroom and it's about how to create a good classroom environment with a tad bit on classroom management. This course started three weeks before the Fall term officially starts. So far we have a lot of reading to do with some written assignments.
In this course, we will learn about how Tribes work in the classroom. My professor is a Tribes TLC trainer and currently working with a few local schools. Tribes is active, inclusive small groups that cooperatively learn together. These Tribes Learning Community (TLC) groups need to stay together for a long period of time to really work. This system works really well but you need to give it enough processing time to really work. Tribes doesn't work with every student, but highly effective work with the whole class. For the few students who struggle with this system, you would have to adjust and make modifications to make it work for them.
Here are the mission and goals of Tribes:
The mission of Tribes is to assure the healthy development of every child so that each has the knowledge, competency and resilience to be successful in today's rapidly changing world.
The goal is to engage all teachers, administrators, students and families in working together as a learning community that is dedicated to caring and support, active participation and positive expectations of all students.
~From page 31 of Reaching All by Creating Tribes Learning Communities by Jeanne Gibbs
These TLC groups have 4 Agreements that need to learn, practice and monitor to make it work:
1. Attentive Listening: When you give a full focus to the speaker and have an open heart to receive the message.
2. Mutual Respect: Honor each other differences and appreciate each other's attributes.
3. Appreciation/No Put Downs: Value each other's gifts and talents to the group.
4. The Right to Pass & The Right to Participate: This gives students the choice on how much they want to participate and when they participate.
Basically, this system is very student-centered. If a student feels like they are part of a caring community and play a value role in that community, they will be more engaged in learning with others without the distractions or off-task behavior that need to be managed by the teacher. There are so much about Tribes that I don't know yet.
Resource: Reaching All by Creating Tribes Learning Community by Jeanne Gibbs.
