Teacher Toolbox Classcon

Classroom Contract Description: A Classroom Contract is a collaboratively created document between students and their teacher to decide classroom rules, norms, and consequences. This gives students ownership over their classroom, and behavior.

Directions: Here is a step by step guide to using a Classroom Contract: 1. Introduce the idea of a classroom contract and have the students brainstorm ideas for rules that should be in the contract. 2. Ask for the student’s ideas and display them so the whole class can see. 3. Summarize the ideas by having a class discussion, where the students can weigh the importance of the rules and find compromises. 4. Create a poster to display the final rules. 5. Have all the students and the teacher sign the contract. 6. Whenever necessary, review the contract to amend or remind students how the contract is working.

When to Use This Strategy: The best times to use this strategy would be: 1. At the beginning of the school year. 2. When students are not following the pre-established rules. 3. Before beginning a new activity. 4. Before beginning a new unit. 5. When returning from long breaks.

Variations:

Here are some variations of this strategy: 1. Team Social Contracts – This can be used with small groups of students when working on group projects. 2. Individual Social Contracts – When the class as a whole is working well, but individual students are presenting discipline problems, a teacher could make an individual contract with those individual students. 3. Instead of the class coming up with the whole contract, allow them to chip in one or two rules.