To achieve an inclusive classroom, students must feel supported and welcomed by their classmates, in addition to the Classroom Professionals and Teaching Artists. Below, you’ll find strategies to develop positive collaboration and encourage all students to contribute to an inclusive environment.

Communication with Classroom Professionals

As Teaching Artists (TAs), it’s important for us to collaborate with the other Classroom Professionals in the room; this begins with emphasizing to them the value of their participation. Ideally all students, Teachers, and Paraprofessionals are to be included in our work. Please request that any Related Service Providers push-in during your lessons in the planning meeting. This may allow Classroom Professionals to encourage and reinforce the strategies below and help students focus on your class. This conversation can be incorporated into your planning meeting in order to fully engage the adults in the room, both in-person and during remote learning.

Student to Student Strategies 

Note: Some of these strategies may lead to loud noise levels or need to be modified to accommodate students’ physical abilities.

Find a New Place in the Circle/Room

• Directions
  • At the beginning of the lesson, welcome students and ask them to silently find a new spot in the circle (or other configuration in the space) on the count of 10.
  • Once students have found a new spot, prompt them to turn and talk to a partner standing next to them. This can be a prompt about the art form, upcoming content, or just a moment to share something nice that happened during the day.
  • This can be repeated a few times so students have chances to chat with different classmates.
• Tip: This activity can get loud and energetic. To keep the energy calm, you can encourage students to find a new spot in slow motion, and tell them to whisper the prompt to their partner.
• Accommodations: You could have students sit in chairs if they need a bit more spatial guidance. Or half the students could sit and half could be the group that moves.

Round-Robin 

• Directions 
  • Configure students into two circles (an inner circle and an outer circle) facing each other.
  • Each student should have one partner facing them (this can also be set up in advance using chairs).
  • Prompt students to share something with their partner or work together with their partner to create something (e.g., practice a dance step, share a piece of visual art and give each other feedback, share a location or character idea for a scene, create a secret handshake).
  • Once shared, ask one circle to stay where they are and the other circle to move one person to the right or left. Everyone will now have a new partner and should be prompted to share something else.
  • This can continue for a few rounds, or even until every student has had a chance to talk to every other student.

• Tip: This activity can get loud with lots of students chatting at the same time. Be sure to establish a cue to get students’ attention and give them clear time limits.

• Accommodations: Have the inner students sit in chairs or wheelchairs. Place a chair facing them, then have the outer circle move to the next chair.

Introduce Each Other’s Art

• Directions
  • Before sharing a piece of work with the class, ask students to pair up.
  • In their pairs, they will share their name or artist name (this could be something like, ‘I’m known as the marvelous Malichi’), the name of the piece of work they’ll be sharing, and one thing they want the viewer or audience to know about their work.
  • Their partner will then introduce them to the class with these prompts before they share.
• Accommodations: This can also be done nonverbally by collaboratively creating a gesture for the student’s name and creating an epic entrance that throws attention to the performer/sharer.

Turn and Talk

• Directions 
  • Incorporate turn-and-talks into your questioning and reflection process. Instead of a full-group discussion, ask a question and tell students to turn and talk to a partner about their response.
  • Give them clear time limits on the amount of time they have and when one partner should finish sharing and the other partner should begin.
  • You can ask for student volunteers to share out after talking to each other.

Assigning Roles and Leadership Strategies

• When doing small group work, clarify what roles need to be present in each group (e.g., one writer, two actors, one director, etc.).
• Clearly define and assign the roles in advance or have students choose the role they want before they begin to work. If assigned, ask the Classroom Professionals ahead of time what each person is good at (e.g., a writer is someone who is good at creating stories and scenarios). Or prompt students to have a conversation about each other’s strengths and assign roles based on that.
• When doing this work over multiple sessions, think about switching up responsibilities. You or Classroom Professionals may want to write down who has had which role for the future.
• If conflict arises over someone’s idea not being heard, you can troubleshoot by going back to the definition of each role and who is responsible for what.
• You have the opportunity to highlight students’ unique ideas or point out when someone demonstrates mastery of a skill. If possible, ask students to teach the skill to the rest of the class, or share how they came up with their idea (e.g., a student creates a dance move that they then teach to the whole class and add to a sequence of choreography).
• Try giving students leadership roles that require them to communicate and collaborate with the class as a whole. This could include a documentarian who is in charge of writing down or filming the work of other students, a director who gives structured feedback to small groups or individual students, or a timekeeper who checks in with groups to let them know how much time they have.

Large-Group Relationship Building Strategies

• Teaching Artists should positively reinforce strong artistic choices, leadership initiative, and students who positively support and collaborate with their classmates.
• Give students space and time to share their genuine feelings and interests with their classmates. Encourage connections among students who may have similar interests.
• At the end of the workshop, ask questions that highlight collaboration.
  • “What is something you learned from a classmate today?”
  • “What is something you learned about a classmate today?”
  • “Do you want to compliment anyone for their work in class today?”
• Start artistic work with a show-and-tell or a mini talent show. Have each student bring in an object or piece of artistic work and share it with the class. Let students ask questions and give positive feedback to their classmates.