Tribes in the Math Classroom

            Students experience a much greater level of success in their education when they can learn in a comfortable and positive classroom environment.  When students feel compassionate and emotionally attached toward their peers, they can feel comfortable making mistakes, taking risks, and stating their opinion in front of their peers.  Classroom communities are delicate and time-consuming to build, but if peer relationships are nurtured, students can learn to enjoy their education and will associate learning with positive experiences rather than negative ones.

            Tribes Learning Communities is an educational philosophy that incorporates socioemotional learning goals into every day teaching.  In Tribes classrooms, teachers teach using specific strategies that present curriculum material in ways that promote a strong classroom community and provide opportunities to reflect on specific socioemotional goals such as inclusion, social skill development, goal setting, and conflict resolution.  Here are some examples of Tribes activities that can be modified for use in the math classroom:

1     1.    What’s on Your Mind?

This activity is completed after students learn a new concept.  In this activity, students take turns sharing any concerns or point of clarification that they require (these concerns are shared on a piece of chart paper).  Next students pair up and help one another to clarify the concerns.  This activity is great for review before a test, and is an excellent diagnostic tool for teachers as well.  In reflection afterwards, teachers should lead a class discussion on how students felt when their peers helped them to understand what they weren’t sure about, what personal strengths they used to be successful in the activity, and which communication skills were important in this activity.

2              2.    Snowball I-Messages

In this activity, students each write an anonymous “I-message” (ex. I feel _____ when _____ happens) onto a piece of paper, crumples it up, and tosses it to another student for him/her to write a comment on.  This activity can be modified as an activity for practice in the math class.  Students can each write down a practice question on their snowball (piece of paper).  During the first snowball toss, students can answer one another’s questions, and during the second toss, students can mark the answers, leaving constructive comments.  Students should be encouraged to support one another and to clarify incorrect answers respectfully, and should reflect afterwards on their ability to create, answer, and mark the questions, as well as their ability to write constructive comments to their peers.

3              3.    Graphing Who We Are

This activity is an excellent activity to practice student’s graphing skills, and has obvious applications in the math classroom.  In this activity, students collect data about their peers (eye colours, number of siblings, heights, etc.) and graph these sets of data.  When students are finished, they can present their graphs to the community.  After the presentations, the class should reflect on the types of cooperative skills that they needed in order to collect data from others, why individual differences are important, and how to approach classmates with respect.

                                                                   

*All images and activities taken from:

Gibbs, J. & Ushijima, T. (2008). Engaging all by creating high school learning communities. Windsor, CA: CenterSource Systems.