SIM Student Collaboration Strategies

SIM includes several series that help students participate effectively in class, work together in teams, organize their desks or lockers, and interact with each other.

• SLANT: A Starter Strategy for Class Participation - available for FREE download
• Community Building Series - Developed as a part of the “safe schools” movement, the series was designed to help students learn important skills that can turn every classroom into a true learning community. Within a learning community, all students are sincerely interested in one another and actively work to help each other learn. All members feel valued for what they can contribute. They feel safe and protected, and they are able to take risks as learners. They feel connected to one another. As a result, negative interactions and bullying are minimized, and students who need help and support can receive it within the structure of the class. In this series, students learn confidence and competence-building skills associated with participating and working with partners and the concepts of respect, tolerance, and a learning community.
  • Focusing Together
  • Following Instructions Together
  • Organizing Together
  • Taking Notes Together
  • Talking Together
• Cooperative Thinking Strategies -  A group of strategies students can use to think and work productively together.  These instructional programs provide ways to accommodate a diversity of learners in inclusive classrooms and enable students to learn complex higher-order thinking skills that they can use to work together harmoniously with others in school, leisure, family, community, and work setting.
  • BUILD Strategy
  • LEARN Strategy
  • SCORE Skills
  • Teamwork Strategy
  • THINK Strategy

SIM has made me a better teacher over the years, providing me with many tools that I can use with the students I service on my ESE Caseload and others that just need a little extra. Last year I focused on the Community Building Strategies, and I have many students who benefitted from this instruction. I am seeing students starting to make connections with the modeling and explicate teaching that SIM has taught me to provide. I love being able to pull from my tool box based on student needs.

~ Sarah, Florida Middle School Teacher