Seminar Rules

I always guide students in developing their own group norms for seminar. Every year, we end up with the same basic rules for seminar. My fifth grade students this year though were particularly funny because they kept insisting on adding more as certain situations arose. During our group debrief at the end of seminar, it was very common for them to say, "I think we need to have a norm for..." In the past, I've kind of liked to have just a very few short but enforcable rules, but this is what my students came up with this year.

We will be respectful of everyone's opinion. We recognize that everyone has something to learn and everyone has something to teach.

We will talk one person at a time. Yield to the first speaker.

We will disagree in a mature and courteous way.

We will focus on the piece. Stay on topic.

We will address our comments to the entire group. We will not just look at the facilitator when speaking.

If someone looks only at us when s/he is speaking, we will look away as a friendly reminder. We will purposely move our eyes around the group to remind them that's what they should be doing.

We will not dominate the conversation.

We will not raise our hands. If you yield, this is unnecessary. Raising hands is silly when the discussion is amongst mature individuals.

We will not have any side conversations.

We will work hard to accomplish the individual goals we set for ourselves, as well as the group goals we agree upon.

We will be honest.

We will refrain from negative body language.

We will try to have meaningful dialogue instead of mere debates.

We will try hard to understand opposing viewpoints.

We will always refer to the text when attempting to prove something.