Structures
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Homeroom and advisory activities, ready to run

Homeroom is where a class becomes a group, or does not. These structures give the conversation a shape: everyone gets a turn, the quiet students too, and nobody has to speak to the whole room before they are ready.

They are prepared for getting to know each other, looking back on the week, friendship and working together as a class.

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27 ready-made structures

Engagement strategies for homeroom and advisory

Homeroom or advisory is where a class becomes a group. Students get to know each other, look back on their week and practice working together. An open circle discussion seems like the natural format, but in a circle of thirty, usually only a few people talk.

Active learning structures give the conversation a shape in which everyone gets a turn. Students talk first in pairs or small groups, where it feels safer, and only then share something with the whole class. It is everyday social-emotional learning, built into the routine rather than added on top.

Which structure for which part of the lesson?

At the start of the school year, Interview in Three Rounds is a strong get-to-know-you structure: students interview each other and introduce their partner to the group. Inner & Outer Circle lets everyone talk with many classmates in a short time.

To look back on the week, Taking Turns works with questions like: what went well, what was hard, what are you looking forward to? Stand Up & Sit Down shows the mood in the room without anyone having to explain anything.

Practice teamwork with Copy Me, where one student describes a drawing and the other recreates it without looking. The difference between the two drawings is the conversation starter.

What to watch for

Make it clear that passing is allowed: a student who doesn't want to answer a personal question says so, and the turn moves on. And choose questions everyone can answer, including a student who had a rough week.

Learning to learn in this subject

Three ways of learning studied in this very subject, each with the structure that makes it happen in class. The board tells the class what it is training.

  • Plan first

    The worst plan

    Before test week: how do you ruin it for sure, which of that you already do, and what you do differently from now on.

  • Retrieve from memory

    Taking Turns

    The class’s rules and agreements in turn from memory, book closed, instead of read out.

  • Judge how well you know it

    One by one

    After a test or task the exit slip: where it stuck, what helped, how well I know it now.

Planning and judging yourself are best evidenced inside the subject lesson, with that subject’s material: name them in homeroom, train them in math and English.

Sources: EEF (2018), Metacognition and self-regulated learning · Dunlosky et al. (2013), practice testing · Dunlosky & Rawson (2012), overconfidence

All ways of learning, with sources →

Other subjects

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