Classroom Routines: Definition and Key Features
All students need this every day, but some students need more. Equity means matching your use with students’ needs.
Definition: A routine is a set of predictable procedures for handling daily occurrences that facilitate student autonomy and engagement in learning.
Key Features for Supporting All Students:
Key Feature 1: When communicating about a routine, use language that respects and celebrates all identities (e.g., addressing the class as Scholars, Students, or Everyone rather than Boys and Girls; refer to their family, loved ones, grown-ups rather than Mom or Dad).
Key Feature 2: Apply class wide routines with predictability while accounting for individual student needs (e.g., multi-language learners, neurodiverse students).
Key Feature 3: Post or provide visual depictions of routines that include images representing the range of identities and cultures in the broader community.
Purpose: To give students guidance about what to do when (e.g., procedures for arrivals and departures; what to do if a pencil breaks; what to do if they need help; what to do when finished with work; what to do if upset, etc.) and to create predictability, safety, and an effective learning environment.
Tips:
- Explicitly teach routines by explaining classroom procedures and the rationale behind them.
- Practice the routine – use positive reinforcement for students who follow routines and corrective feedback for those that do not.
- Keep in mind that students, especially those with a traumatic history, benefit from predictability and sameness every day. Routines should be predictable but not rigid.
- Engage students in developmentally appropriate discussions about the need for routines and seek their input on creating routines that facilitate a safe, collaborative, and productive classroom environment.
- Monitor consistent use of the routine over time and review, as necessary.
- Periodically reteach the routines and further reinforce the value of established rules and routines, especially following natural breaks in the school schedule or when a new student joins the class.
- Place visuals about routines at student eye-level and in optimal locations for students to easily see and access them. Ensure the visual images represent diverse cultural backgrounds.
- Once routines have been established, encourage students to develop autonomy and responsibility for following the routines and positively reinforce their use of the routines.
- Communicate with caregivers about their at-home routines and ask for input to enhance comfort and engagement for all students.
- Engage in actions that communicate that all students have the potential to meet expectations given well-matched supports.