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Building Community in a Differentiated Classroom How do you build a sense of community in a differentiated classroom? Community in a classroom is so very important for the students and the teachers. If the child is comfortable in their classroom then they are going to learn more efficiently; if they teacher feels comfortable in their classroom they are going to feel at ease while teaching. However, when you have different groups (different races, learning levels, ages, personalities, etc.) of children in your classroom, it might be thought of as being a difficult thing to do. However, this is not the case; there are many different ways to build a sense of community in not only a differentiated classroom, but in the entire school. There are many activities you can do in your personal classroom to build community. One activity is to introduce a Star of the Week. This is basically when one child is randomly chosen each week to be the star. This would include being the "line leader", or feeding the classroom pet, or being in charge of making sure all the work areas are clean before going to recess. This is a week where they get to be the leader of the classroom. Beyond that, it is also a week where the class gets to learn new things about that child. Parents could come in and talk about the child one of the days and bring in personal items of the child's, like a toy or picture. Then at the end of the week, every child in the classroom writes down something positive about the Star of the Week and posts it on the classroom wall. So by the end of the year, every child will have lots of positive things about them posted all over the room. If you want to speed this process up you could change it to a Star of the Day (Kyle and Rule, 2008). And not only would it make the child feel good about themselves seeing all the positive things, but it gives everyone else in the classroom a chance to learn something new about that child and their background, building community.

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Every assignment or activity you do needs to have a purpose. When you notice as a teacher that youre lacking community in your classroom, you can do activities that let the child think about what their interests are, and what their background is, and what they admire in people. This way you can eventually share these things with the class and build bonds with the students. The students can share what they admire in the other students around them, they can play with the other children that have the same interests as them, or they can share something about themselves that maybe the rest of the class does not know much about and as a teacher, you can expand on those ideas (Watts, 2008). Other than the classroom bonding, you can take your bonding a step further and make an effort to build that sense of community with the entire building. This could include taking time out of your lunch break and go stand outside of the cafeteria and greet the children coming in, or before school going down to the breakfast area and chatting with the children there for a few minutes. Looking up information about the children who are involved in sports or after school activities is a great way to show the children you are paying attention to them and care. If someone has a concert that night you can wish him or her luck, or if someone scored the winning goal at the evening before soccer game then you can congratulate him or her. There are many ways of showing your students that you are interested in what they are doing which creates a good teacher/student relationship which will grow into a great sense of community in your classroom (Kyle and Rule, 2008). Not only bonding with the students, but also bonding with the staff to build that sense of community in the entire building. You could have summer meetings with the grade of teachers you work with and share ideas about the future or even just going out to dinner as a group and become friends. When teachers are happy with each other and enjoy what they do and enjoy who

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they work with, the atmosphere completely changes. All of these things will build community in the school building which will make for a better atmosphere for the children. Parent involvement is huge when building community in a diverse and differentiated classroom. It's important to not only communicate with your children's families but to also have the students learn background knowledge about their fellow classmates. There are many ways to communicate and involve students' parents. One way is to set up a website online. This would be used for newsletters, important dates, activities the students are doing in the class, pictures etc. However, it could also be used for communicating back and forth with the parents. You could do a communication blog or chat type of communication. That way the parents can see what other parents are saying as well as the teacher. This could bring community within parents, teachers, and their children (Anderson, Standerford & Imdieke, 2010). After talking with parents, you can see similar interests and schedules and ask parents to work together maybe during some after school activities or come in during the same time during the school day to help out. Overall, there are many ways to build community in your classroom. Involving every student by using activities, involving other teachers, showing you care by being interested in each child not only in the classroom but in afterschool programs/activities, and involving parents are all great ways to build that sense of community.

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Works Cited Watts, J. (2008). Building classroom community with one writing assignment. The Virginia English Bulletin, 58(1), Retrieved from http://www.vate.org/pdf/ideas/GreatTeachClassCommunitybyWattsfromSpringSummer2008VE B58-1.pdf Kyle, P. B., & Rule, A. C. (2008). Community-building in a diverse setting. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10643-008-0290-z Anderson, D. L., Standerford, S. N., & Imdieke, S. (2010). A self-study on building community in the online classroom. 12(2), 1-9. Retrieved from journals.library.wisc.edu/index.php/networks/article/download/.../392