Working Agreements
On our first day of the IB Curriculum Processes course, we created working agreements as a class. These agreements were to keep us "in check" as we met as a cohort.
What I liked best about the working agreements was that they were student generated. As a cohort we thought of what we needed to be successful in class. We discussed all the items and condensed them down into a personalized list. To an onlooker, they may not make sense, but to the cohort we understood what they all meant.
We started each class by reviewing the agreements and how they were working and discussed if we need to adjust, add, take any of them away.
Since each period can have its own "personality", I can see this this process being used as an awesome tool in the classroom to build classroom community. When prompted, students can be very honest about their needs to be successful and would love to create their own set of "rules" for the classroom. The most powerful part is the "check-in" from the instructor to make sure they are working for the class.