Often one of the best ways to address classroom dynamics and encourage cohesion is through experiential activities. This lesson includes two simple activities that provide fun and useful insight about how one student’s behavior can affect everyone’s ability to learn and how engagement depends on everyone. Students will learn during this lesson to better understand their impact on others and the idea of working together to accomplish personal and group goals.
What will students do during this lesson?
Students should be instructed to sit or stand (sitting for younger grades), tell everyone to take hold of the rope with both hands and scoot back until the rope is taught, but not completely rigid. Provide little instruction other than to emphasize strongly that their one job is to hold the rope as still as possible. Ask the group if they think they can do it.
When you see that the rope is still, pick one student and tell them that their job is to get the rope to move. Encourage them to shake, pull or do whatever is needed to move the rope. (This lesson is most effective when you select a student who has demonstrated some disruptive behavior in the class).
Continue to encourage the class to hold the rope as still as possible as you add another 2-3 students as “shakers”. You may need to pause and restart several times so that students can clearly see the impact of just one student shaking the rope.
After several rounds, pause the game and collect the rope. Instruct students to sit in a circle and facilitate a group discussion based on the following questions.
Describe what happened.
Was it possible to hold the rope completely still? Why not?
How did one person’s actions affect the whole group?
In what ways is this rope exercise like our classroom experiences?
Can one person’s behavior affect everyone’s ability to learn? What should we do about this?
Were there any students who gave up or weren’t hold the rope? How did this affect others? How is this similar to class participation?
What level of participation do we need to be successful as a class of learners?