Classroom Democracy: Giving Our Students a Voice

EDL 318A
Spring 2016 Curriculum Project
By: Ellie Papageorge, Cassandra Sandvick, Kyle Spampinato, & Allyson Turner

Abstract:
Student choice increases learner engagement and content retention. Democracy in
students choice and voice is lacking in our current school. Our curriculum seeks to equip
teachers with strategies to embrace democracy with diverse students through effective
professional development that empowers teachers to be proactive implementers of student choice
in democratic classrooms.

Curriculum Rationale:
Our team believes that a student's choice is one of the most important qualities within a
classroom. A democratic classroom is designed to flawlessly implement the choice of students
while also maintaining the core values and standards of learning. This idea delves entirely into
the students affective learning, which is the growth in students feelings or emotional areas is
based on their attitude and sense of self. Their sense of self can be developed within the
classroom. This concept rests on John Deweys research which tells educators that the foundation
of critical learning is student interest (Dewey, 1913.) We feel that student interest can be
increased by requiring them to invest in their own education, and giving them choice. When the
students have choice, such as the way they are assessed, the books that they read, the labs in
which they partake, they will automatically take more interest in the subject matter. Thus, the
students will take part in more affective learning, as Dewey suggests.
In our school, teachers seem to be hesitant of student choice and how to implement the
concept of a democratic classroom. Because of this, the professional development we provide
gives teachers the information they need to comfortably insert these concepts within the
classroom, which in turn gives them just-in-time, job-embedded assistance as they struggle to
adapt new curricula and new instructional practices to their unique classroom contexts. (Guskey
& Yoon, 2009). These tools will be included in our professional development strategies for the
student centered classroom.
Our school has a variety of educators, including those with high autonomy levels and
those with low autonomy levels. The autonomy factor is closely related to the way teachers
engage with students and also with level at which teachers give student responsibility. Reeve et

al (1999) categorized teachers by high or low autonomy, making several interesting findings.
These are as follows:
high autonomy teachers were more likely to ask students about their wants and respond to
student generated questions
high autonomy teachers aimed to reach students intrinsic motivation when describing tasks, thus,
creating a more student-centered atmosphere and encouraging student initiation
under authoritarian control, research shows students are driven by completion of tasks and not by
understanding as opposed to those in a student-centered class and students are more engaged in a
class that is student centered because theyre more interested in understanding the content and
they become co-decision makers in the learning process.
Because of the broad array of educators, and the level at which they are interested in This
professional development is for teachers with an already high autonomy level who tend to focus
more on students already, as they can still improve and benefit from the tools provided, but
especially for those with a lower autonomy level, so that they can increase their understanding of
the benefits of a student centered classroom and also explore the how in order to have one of
their own.

Curriculum Description (two pages):

Our curriculum is designed to be implemented in our high school. The curriculum takes
place throughout the school year during multiple professional development days. This
curriculum is meant to be presented to administrators, teachers and staff at seminars and/or
professional development meetings. There are three main features in this professional
development program, and it is designed as a cyclic process for the teachers. Schools can choose
to implement one cycle or multiple cycles, the more cycles completed, the more likely teachers
will be able to customize the program to fit their specific needs when approaching the concept of
classroom democracy.
Prior to the very first meeting for the very first cycle, an introduction meeting will take
place with all high school faculty and administration. This introduction takes place before the
first day of the school year and most importantly, the first day of the professional development
cycle. THis is because we want to gauge the attitudes of our teachers on the following things:
their needs in the classroom, their knowledge of classroom democracy, their comfortability with
classroom democracy, and what their specific needs are from professional development. After the
introductory meeting, the first cycle-oriented professional development day will take place.
The first feature of this cycle is the planning stage. This is intended to be the first day of
the professional development is a workshop aimed at identifying teachers needs in relation to
student choice. The goal for this stage is to identify both teacher and students needs as they
pertain to democracy in the classroom. As these needs are brainstormed and brought to life, an
plan will be developed in order to better lay out the expected course of action in the act/teach and
reflect stages. This stage is intended to be very teacher driven, allowing teachers to have a say in
how they implement student choice in their classroom so theyre aligned with professional and

content standards. During this stage teaching strategies that encourage student choice may be
discussed, but these do not need to be decided until stage two. The main goal of this session will
be to understand what teachers want to see in their classrooms, and come up with a plan for how
they will accomplish that.
The second feature of this cycle is the teach/act stage. This stage is a workshop designed
to allow teachers to further develop their ideas from the plan feature and teach the lesson and/or
implement the plan theyve constructed previously. Before any progress or reflection can be
made in the third stage, teachers must try the strategies that were presented in the plan stage. In
this stage, lessons and strategies brainstormed by those participating in the workshop can be
modeled by the facilitators to engage the faculty and administrators and give them a clear view
of what their plans might look like in action. When this stage is put into practice in the
classroom, evidence of student learning will be taken by multiple forms of assessment. This will
provide information for the last feature of the cycle.
The third feature of this cycle is the reflect stage. There are multiple things that
facilitators will ask faculty and administration to reflect on. These things include comparing their
classroom and students to before the plans were put into action and are as follows:

Student Progress
Does the student improve?
Identify Successes
Did all students improve or only some?
Which kinds of students improved?
Was the implementation of democratic strategies easier than expected?
Identify Challenges
What were the biggest struggles?
Which kinds of students improved the least?
Assess overall practice
Do you think this a successful program?
Were the professional development days/workshops beneficial to you?
Do you feel your time was used as efficiently as possible?
Improvement

 What are your goals for the next cycle?

What is something you would change about your participation in the cycle?
What is something you would change about the professional development design?
The questions in this final part of the reflection stage allow for the cycle to repeat itself, as its
designed. As the cycle repeats itself, teachers are able to personalize it more and more to the
nature of their own content, and it becomes less generalized and more personal.

Graphic Depiction of the Curriculum

- Establish focus for work based on teacher and student needs

- Determine outcomes aligned with professional and content standards
- Identify evidence of student/teacher success
- Discuss and select teaching strategies
- Develop an action plan

A
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- Teach the lesson and/or implement the plan

- Model a lesson or strategy
- Collect evidence of student learning

/AC
CH

T
EC
FL
RE
Student Choice:

Giving Our Students a Voice

- Analyze student work with reference to past student work

- Identify successes and challenges
- Assess overall practice
- Think of ways to improve the methods

PLA

Example of How it Might Look in Practice:

The concept of our professional development lies within the three component cycle of
Plan, Teach/Act and Reflect. For this example, we want to show what the PTR professional
development would look like with two completed cycles, including an introduction before the
school year begins to lay a foundation for the years professional development.
Introduction:
Previous to the start of the school year, an introduction to the professional development
program will be implemented. This introductory session will address the following questions:

What will be expected of the you (the educator) throughout the school year?
What is a democratic classroom?
What are the features of a democratic classroom?
In what way(s) does your classroom already exhibit the characteristics of a democratic

classroom?
Do you feel a democratic classroom is important/helpful to engage your students?
These questions establish a foundation for the professional development program. At this
time, we also want to include an attitude survey (using a likert scale) about teachers,
administrators, and facultys perceptions of implementing a democratic classroom with their
students. This survey would gage the facultys attitude towards the current professional
development program and whether or not they would feel reluctant. It would also give insight
about the facultys knowledge of the concept of the democratic classroom, and also give details
as to what specific things about classroom democracy of which they are hesitant, unclear or
excited about exploring. The survey would be collected and used by facilitators accordingly.
Additional questions to be addressed are as follows:
How will the program be laid out?

 How meaningful will this be to my content area?

We plan to explain how a democratic classroom is possible for all subjects: Biology,
Anatomy, Earth Science, Astronomy, Chemistry, English/Language Arts, Creative Writing,
Professional Writing, Argumentative Writing, Mathematics, Social Studies, Art, P.E., Music
(Marching Band, Concert Band, Jazz Band, Chorus, and Show Choir) etc...
The introductory session will then end with a shift to the students attitude within the
classroom in reference to classrooms changing. Attitude surveys would also be given to them,
specific to content area and using the same type of likert scale, in order to see a student's
response to an implementation of a democratic classroom. This, again, goes back to the research
from Dewey about student-interest being a catalyst to affective learning.
Semester One:
Plan:
During the plan stage, the facilitators will share the results of the attitude surveys and also
show commons themes in the results, such as what teachers think classroom democracy is, how
teachers feel about having a democratic classroom, etc Following the sharing of results, the
teachers will break up into non-content groups and discuss what they already do in their
classroom to promote student choice. The reason they are in non-content areas is so that they can
get ideas from other teachers that might cross between content areas.
The following activity would be a brainstorming workshop where teachers are divided
into groups and begin to brainstorm ideas that will make their classrooms more democratic. They
discuss teaching strategies, lesson plans, habits, routines, etc The next part in the workshop
will allow teachers to develop an action plan that will show them how they will continue through
the professional development program during the course of the school year.

Before the close of the session, participants will be reminded of the upcoming
professional development days, and teachers will be informed of what to expect from the next
stage in the cycle. Teachers are told to come back with the results from an attitude survey from
their students and how they feel about the entire topic of classroom democracy, and also what
ideas they have about they would teach a lesson with student choice being the main focus.
Teach/Act:
This session will allow teachers to plan a lesson, unit, or learning segment that
incorporates student-centered practices as means for delivering content. Examples of lesson
plans will be provided by the program or participants in the program, modeled by participants or
facilitators, and then given feedback about what worked and didnt work in the lesson plan.
Teachers will workshop in groups based on their content areas to come up with their own
lesson plan ideas and use the facilitators for feedback and guidance. Their only assignment for
the next professional development day is to teach their lesson, implement their strategies, and
then bring back the results.
Reflect:
Teachers will break into different groups to discuss their experiences in relation to their
efforts to implement a democratic classroom. Teachers will be asked to reflect on five things:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Student Progress
Implementation Success
Implementation Challenges
Assess of Overall Practice
Improvement
Upon this reflection, and going into the second semester of the year, teachers will reflect
and bring back ideas to the first plan stage of the next semester. The cycle will continue, only the
professional development days will include the teachers meeting by department instead of an

entire school. Since the cycle has already been completed once, teachers should be more
comfortable in the cycle and gain more from meeting with their content areas as opposed to the
entire school faculty and staff. The next cycle will include the same three features with three
professional development days: Plan, Teach/Act, and Reflect. The second time through, content
will be more specific, and teachers will have experience with the process and will be able to dig
deeper into their ideas.

Curriculum Assessment:
The way that we assess the success of the professional development and how teachers
implement classroom democracy is by comparing viewing the students progress throughout the
year. Assessing the students progress from before the professional development began, after the
Teach/Act stage, and then after the reflection,
Pre and post surveys from the faculty/administration will be taken into account to gauge
the attitude of the participants of the professional development about classroom democracy. The
same type of survey from the students will be able to show us how the attitudes of professional
development may have changed or stayed the same. It would also show the students attitude
towards school or a specific subject in order to show how it was affected by the professional
development ideas and implementations.
Even the reflections of teachers from the Reflect stage of the cycle could be used as a
way to gain understanding of the entire process and where the teachers feel they lie on the
comfortability of implementing student choice. Because they touch on topics like the challenges,
successes, and modifications of the professional development, much knowledge could be gained
from these reflections.

References:
Barnes, J. L., & Bramley, S. A. (2008). Increasing High School Student Engagement in
Classroom Activities by Implementing Real-World Projects with Choice, Goals
Portfolios, and Goals Conferencing. Online Submission.
Dewey, J. (1913). Interest and effort in education. Houghton Mifflin.
Dobrow, S. R., Smith, W. K., & Posner, M. A. (2011). Managing the grading paradox:
Leveraging the power of choice in the classroom. Academy of Management Learning &
Education, 10(2), 261-276.
Guskey, T. R., & Yoon, K. S. (2009). What works in professional development. Phi delta kappan,
90(7), 495-500.
Stefanou, C. R., Perencevich, K. C., DiCintio, M., & Turner, J. C. (2004). Supporting autonomy
in the classroom: Ways teachers encourage student decision making and ownership.
Educational Psychologist, 39(2), 97-110.