Consistent, Organized, and Respectful Learning Environment
This microcredential represents an educator's ability to establish a consistent, organized, and respectful learning environment.
To earn this 0.5 USBE credit microcredential you will submit two types of evidence from the list below to demonstrate your development of effective learning environments to support instruction. You will also complete a short written or video reflective analysis. Click Earn This Microcredential to learn more!
When establishing learning environments, teachers build mutually respectful relationships with students and engage them in setting the classroom climate.
Teachers explicitly teach and practice expectations, procedures, and routines that value ethnic, cultural, contextual, and linguistic diversity to foster student engagement across learning environments.
Teachers provide age-appropriate, specific performance feedback in meaningful and caring ways. By establishing, following, and reinforcing expectations for all students within the classroom, teachers will reduce the potential for challenging behavior and increase student engagement.
High leverage practices are frequently occurring, educational practices that all educators should know how to do. These practices are evidence based, meaning that they reflect effective methods that when successfully implemented can improve results for each learner.
Elementary Scenario Brenda McMartin is teaching a kindergarten class and understands that routine and consistency are key to building the kind of environment that will support her students in establishing their love of learning and of being part of a learning community. She explicitly and respectfully reminds students of the procedures and indicates the calm feeling the class has when everyone is working toward the same peaceful environment. She is careful to correct behavior privately and works to always ensure that students know it is safe to ask questions and make mistakes. She continually reinforces the idea that mistakes are part of the path to learning and that neither she nor any of their fellow students are allowed to shame one another when they are trying to work on that path. As a result, the parents support the learning and reinforce these clear expectations because they know their child is safe in that environment. Ms. McMartin’s students are consistently prepared to move to 1st grade and enthusiastic to continue their learning.
Secondary Scenario Brian Greenleaf is working with his 10th grade journalism students to promote digital literacy and citizenship in order to extend these ideas to ethical journalistic practices. His students have frequent conversations about how someone could find themselves engaging in cyberbullying or in disrespect using the digital tools available to them. The students dialogue with one another and with Mr. Greenleaf about how they can be sure to contribute positively in an online environment and be sure to seek the truth when gathering information for the stories they publish for the school newspaper. These conversations can be tense and uncomfortable at first, but Mr. Greenleaf has fostered a community of respect with clear guidelines and discussion norms. Students are finding ways to critically consider complicated and charged issues in the safe environment provided in this classroom through his guidance and expectations.
Category: Preparation and Planning
Submit the evidence described below to demonstrate how you create a consistent, organized, and respectful learning environment.
Submit a lesson plan that explicitly describes the instructional routines and strategies to be used for establishing, following, reinforcing expectations for all students within the classroom. In a separate section of the lesson plan, include citations for research supporting your instructional approach. (See the resources section for examples to cite.)
Category: Implementation
Submit the evidence described below to demonstrate how you create a consistent, organized, and respectful learning environment.
Have a peer, instructional coach, or administrator observe your lesson and complete the observation checklist (see the link in the resources below). A post observation discussion may be helpful so that the observer may ask for more information or seek clarity based on observation.
Review Criteria
Criterion 1: The lesson plan includes a picture or written description of the guidelines for success for the activities in the lesson and how those will be communicated to students.
EXAMPLE: For a group work assignment, the teacher shares a plan for how she anticipates her movement from one group to another based on what is known about the students. She shares, in her plan, some specific questions she will ask the groups and how she can target specific students in the group to encourage thinking and engagement from all members.
NON-EXAMPLE: A teacher creates a lesson plan with standards-aligned content the students will be expected to learn. There is not a connection mentioned regarding specific procedures or expectations for students to follow in order to learn this content.
Criterion 2: The lesson plan includes a description of instructional routines and strategies that will be used to reinforce the expectations during the lesson.
EXAMPLE: Attention Procedure: The teacher will clap three times, students will stop whatever they are working on, clap three times, and look for the teacher. Students will practice once a day for the first week of school by, when directed, simulating a noisy group-work environment, hearing the three claps by the teacher, and then following the procedure. The teacher will positively reinforce this behavior by complimenting the reduced number of seconds students took to get quiet to hear directions.
NON-EXAMPLE: A lesson plan is created for students to engage in group work to collaborate on practice activities where they are to create a poster that shows the differences between the categories of triangles they are studying. The plan does not take into account the procedures for obtaining the needed materials, expectations for group participation, and how they are to store their partial projects in between class sessions. As a result, students are too distracted by the chaos of misunderstanding expectations and off-task behavior distracts from the learning objectives of the lesson.
Criterion 3: The observation checklist is included and shows that the educator met all criteria.
Describe one of your classroom routines or procedures. How does this help you create a consistent, organized, and respectful learning environment?
Review Criteria
Criterion 1: Response demonstrates a level of professionalism and personal reflection that demonstrates the teacher’s learning experience.
Criterion 2: Response includes reference to at least one Utah Effective Teaching Standard.
Criterion 3: Response provides a specific example(s) of a classroom routine or procedure and discusses how it helps to create a consistent, organized, and respectful learning environment.
https://usbe.midaseducation.com/professional-development/courses/course/59174
This is a 2 USBE credit course that builds knowledge about each of the 5 Utah High Leverage Practices
High Leverage Practices: An Introduction
https://www.schools.utah.gov/file/ff54b5fa-43f9-47a1-a751-8cbed146cf72
This document was created by the Utah State Board of Education, Teaching & Learning Section to support the implementation of the 5 Utah High Leverage Practices.
High Leverage Practices
https://highleveragepractices.org/
This site explores the research-based high leverage practice that include the 5 HLPs for this stack as well as others that have been shown to be effective. It is published by the CEEDAR Center.
Utah Effective Teaching Standards
https://www.schools.utah.gov/file/f0e86540-5617-4166-a701-fea403f2f848
The Utah effective Teaching Standards articulate what effective teaching and learning look like in the Utah public education system.
Utah High Leverage Practices: Learning Environment Checklist
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1l6p1CftQkSWYkQU4TF0gFr3iIJcGqhYF/view?usp=sharing
Have a peer, instructional coach, or administrator observe your lesson and complete the observation checklist. Upload a completed copy of the checklist as your evidence of implementation.
Paula Almenar
Heather Ambler
Tamera Anderson
Joshua Aulava
Candice Brindley
Maryann Broberg
Lisa Collier
Bethany Hanson
Madison Hoffman
Jessica Kempter
Betsy Lopez
Sarah Mazuran
Sharon McGarry
Danielle Nielsen
Randee Zeeman
250 East 500 South
Salt Lake City, UT 84111-3204
Phone: 801.538.7807