Covenants - Simplicty and Simple Examples are Essential
According to the Handbook of Online Learning:
- A covenant relies on simple “civility” as the basis of community.
- Covenants need to be simple to be effective, and easy to recall.
- Like corporate mission statements, they should be very simple, based on fundamentals, like “Have fun, work hard, be kind.”
- The ground rules of a covenant need to be simple, so that they can be easily internalized – based less on a set of constant reminders or special techniques, and more on a set of understandings reached prior to entering into the process.
- A good example is a pre-flight checklist, before the moment of take-off, that lets the group quickly switch to auto-pilot.
Question for Reflection: What simple ground rules would you want to include in your online classroom?