What: Co-creating ground rules or community guidelines is important to build rapport in a classroom. These guidelines can include ideas such as being open, criticizing ideas not people, be respectful, stories are confidential, use "I" statements.

​

How: Ask students to write briefly about what qualities make a classroom both productively challenging and supportive of their learning. Then ask them to share those ideas with another person. Then ask them to share out proposed guidelines that will help both challenge and support the particular people in that class. Type those up and bring them back the next week.

​

Why: Co-creating these guideline gives students ownership over their own classroom environment. If these ground rules are explicitly articulated, the classroom environment is more structured, and the expectations for appropriate participation is clear.