Norms and Expectations for the Classroom Community

Students benefit from having a positive classroom community, but they don’t always know what participation should look like. The syllabus can clearly communicate expectations for classroom interactions. By defining expectations for students, the syllabus can also convey that all students’ voices are welcome and valued. Discussion guidelines help build a sense of community among students and provide a common ground for everyone entering a discussion by promoting respectful discourse and welcoming more perspectives in the classroom (Fuentes et al., 2021).

Key Features:

  • Pre-established norms for how students should engage in discussions in the classroom
  • Opportunities for students to review the norms, suggest edits, and approve them early in the semester
  • Possible opportunity for students to co-create norms or guidelines to help them feel more invested and understand the purpose (see TLL resource here)
  • Clear and concrete explanation of how students will participate in interactive elements of the class
  • Openness to periodically revisiting norms during the semester before discussions and/or if any of the norms have been violated

MIT Examples:

Classroom Discussion Norms

  • Listen with an open mind. Share responsibility for including all voices in the discussion.
  • Respect others’ rights to hold opinions and beliefs that differ from your own. If you disagree with something that was said, challenge or criticize the idea, not the person.
  • That said, keep in mind that this class is not about sharing our own political opinions or taking normative stances (“I think this is the way policy should be.”) Instead, the purpose of this class is to analyze why policymaking turns out the way it does. It may be that you already have strong opinions about topics we discuss in class, or you may develop opinions along the way. But in lecture and recitation our goal is to use the concepts we learn to analyze, not pontificate.

Class Participation

This is a discussion-based and problem-solving-based class. Up to one third of the class time will be spent problem-solving in small groups or in class discussion. In addition, your questions and comments are extremely valuable. Discussions during class time are especially appropriate given the narrow focus of our class textbooks. Discussion is highly encouraged to fill gaps in the lecture material, to guide the pace of the class, and for you to inquire about the meaning, relevance, and importance of lecture material.

Let’s Talk

If you have any questions or want to talk through your syllabus, please contact Teaching + Learning Lab, GradSupport (for graduate courses), or S3 (for undergraduate courses). If you want to go deeper, please visit the TLL’s Syllabus Checklist to Support Student Belonging & Achievement, a comprehensive, evidence-based syllabus checklist which informed this resource.

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