Morning Meeting Activity Reflection – EDE 4504 – September 21st, 2020

In my class, Creating and Differentiating Learning Environments, we watched a video of a

teacher conducting a morning meeting with her class. After watching the video, I was tasked
with putting together a morning meeting of my own. My class worked in groups to develop a
four step meeting that we would then present to our classmates during one of our class sessions.
Before I describe my morning meeting and reflect on how my group and I did, I want to review
the video my class watched so that I can make connections and critique my own work.
Video Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiqhKCOPaSE&t=29s
Before I get into the morning meeting that I put together and presented with my group I will be
looking at an example of a morning meeting used in an actual classroom so I can later compare
my morning meeting to another one. I included the link to the video I watched above.
In the video I can see that the students are a little bit older so I would like to assume that they are
pretty good with knowing the rules and routine of a morning meeting. From watching the video,
I can tell that this class has been doing morning meetings pretty consistently because the students
know what to do with each part of the meeting without instruction. To begin the meeting the
teacher has a student facilitating and the student asks her fellow classmates to vote on what
greeting they will do. From then on the teacher shares out some facts about morning meetings
and asks her students a question about the importance of morning meetings. The students then
take turns sharing out their ideas. There are points in time where a student will begin to shout out
but the teacher ignores them and calls on someone who had their hand raised. By doing this it
shows all the students that they must raise their hand to speak and it reinforces set rules in the
classroom. Finally, they finish off with a quick activity using a ball that asks the students various
questions that require them to answer what they would do in the situation. The students seem to
really enjoy this activity and they all seem eager to catch the ball and answer a question. I think
that this morning meeting was amazing and ran very smooth. It is a great an example to base
morning meetings off of because it shows just how simple but impactful a meeting like this is. It
seems to me like it took a lot of time to get to where the class is now because they don’t need
much instruction to guide the meeting. The meeting is more student led which is great because it
gives them an opportunity to bond and build great skills that will be helpful in the future.
Eventually, I would love to get my own future classes to the point where students can take turns
leading a meeting or activity.
Performing My Morning Meeting
To begin, I worked on developing a morning meeting with two of my classmates which we
delivered to our class on September 21st. Before we started to make slides and develop the four
stages of the meeting, we discussed possible topics we could use to center our meeting around.
Since we would be doing the morning meeting with our class we decided to use a topic that
would be useful for all future teachers. We decided that our topic would revolve around the
different languages and cultures we might see in our future schools.
- Morning Message
As students were coming into class we had our morning meeting posted on the zoom screen so
that everyone could gather the materials they needed to be successful during our meeting. It also
welcomed them back to class and offered a good transition from home into the classroom. Once
everyone joined our zoom class we read the morning message out loud so that everyone knew
class was beginning and they knew what kind of topic we would be focusing on in todays
morning meeting.
- Greeting

For our greeting, we asked everyone to raise their hand virtually on our zoom class meeting and
introduce themselves to the class using the following outline, “Hi, my name is _______.” Instead
of saying hi, we asked our students to say hi in a different language, if they knew one. After they
said their name we asked them to answer the question: what 2 languages would you speak, if you
could speak any? This was a great way to get to know each other and learn about different
languages from around the world. I think this part of the meeting went pretty well because
everyone seemed to make connections to each other due to their shared interests in languages.
Also, utilizing the raise hand feature on zoom made the greeting run smoothly. We went down
the line of raised hands and asked each person to only turn their mic on when it was their turn.
- Share
When it came to the share portion of our morning message we wanted as many people as
possible to share out about their experience with English language learners. We wanted to know
whether they were an ELL themselves, knew an ELL, observed in an ELL classroom, or taught
in an ELL classroom. During this share time we allowed people to raise their virtual hands to
have a turn to talk as well as use the chat box to type their ideas. I think that this part of the
morning meeting went really well also because a lot of people shared so many thoughts on what
they have learned or experienced revolving around ELLs. It was definitely a useful topic and
helped to share different perspectives with one another. One thing I did notice was that not
everyone shared out. This worked for our meeting though because if everyone shared out it
would have taken a lot more time to get through the share portion. I think that when I create
morning meetings for my own class I will want to create share sections where everyone can
share out so that everyone feels included in the discussion.
- Group Activity

For the activity portion of the morning meeting, my group and I created a game called the
language scramble. What we did was pick 8 languages and translated “good morning” into those
8 languages. We then put each language on a slide so that there would be 8 rounds of the game.
We asked our students to grab a writing utensil and a sheet of paper so that they can write down
what language they think the language was that was on the screen. This was a good way to
introduce them to different languages and get them thinking about cultures and languages from
around the world. We gave our students 15 to 20 seconds on each slide to guess the language.
They had to write down the language then hold up their answer once the timer went off. A lot of
students, when they were giving feedback, said they really enjoyed the game and what to do
something like this with their own classes. In the end, my group and I assessed our students by
asked them to tell us how many languages they guessed right. Most of them were able to guess
3-5 correctly. Below I tagged some examples from the various language scramble slides that we
used.

- Overall
After completing the activity, I think my group and I did exactly as well as we thought we
would. Thankfully before we presented our meeting we had to make an outline listing the various
ways we would explain each section to the class, what rules our class had to follow and how we
would get them to follow those rules, and how we wanted to assess our class. This outline made
all the difference and helped us to deliver a successful morning meeting. It also made it easy to
decide how to cater it to the age group of our students. For this particular morning meeting, we
delivered it to our fellow classmates so our audience ended up being college students. This made
it easy when my group had to decide what rules we needed to explain to our class. When we
explained the rules and procedures they had to follow with each section of the meeting, there
were no mistakes or misunderstandings that occurred. This relates to collaborative theories of
teaching. According to James Levin and James Nolan (2014), “from the collaborative point of
view, students become capable of controlling their own behavior not by simply following rules
but rather by understanding why rules exist,” (pg.104). Since our classmates our college aged
students they are able to understand better why rules exist and why we follow those rules.
However, if I were to do a morning meeting with elementary aged students I would have to
explain a little more deeply the rules of each section and remind them throughout the meeting
what the rules and proper etiquette are to ensure the meeting runs smoothly. This is related to a
more teacher-directed theory which suggests students become good decision makers by
following the rules given to them by adults (Levin & Nolan, 2014). Since elementary students
are still young and learning, they need an adult to help guide them and build rule following skills
so that later on they will be able to participate in more collaborative settings.
The next time I preform a morning meeting I will make sure to use the outline that I used for
this meeting so that I can be fully prepared for anything that could go wrong. In the end, when
my class was delivering feedback to my group, a couple people mentioned that we had a great
idea/theme for our meeting and that our meeting seemed to move pretty smoothly. I am really
happy with how our morning meeting went and believe that this is a great start to many more. By
completing this morning meeting I better understand how to transition and connect different
activities. I also learned how important it is to fully explain what is expected of the students
because if someone doesn’t understand they could end up lost and not want to participate. I also
learned that having fun can be educational; fun games like the language scramble my group did
or the ball activity that the teacher in the video I watched did, are fun for students but they also
discuss important topics. When ever someone conducts a morning meeting they should look out
and pay attention to who participates. If a certain student doesn’t seem to participate as much
they might need a little encouragement. I noticed in my own morning meeting that it is usually
the same people who share out so the next time I conduct a morning meeting I want to make sure
those who are quieter still participate.
Reflection of Morning Meeting: Connection to FEAPS
FEAP 2a: Organizes, allocates, and manages the resources of time, space, and attention
When planning our morning meeting we had to make sure that all together, the meeting would
take about 30 to 40 minutes. To do this my group added a second question to our greeting that
required our students to talk about what two languages they would want to speak. Without this
second question the meeting might not have made it to the 30 minute mark. My group also had to
be focused on time during the group activity. We did a lot of thinking when we were deciding
how much time to give our students on each slide to guess the language shown. We decided on
15 seconds for most slides but since we made the languages get harder towards the end of the
game my group would give everyone 20 seconds just so they had a little extra time to think. The
reason we choose 15 to 20 seconds was because when it comes to language you either know it
and recognize it or you don’t. If we gave our students to much time a lot of them might be sitting
there with their answers ready, which we didn’t want. Having a fast pace game kept it interesting
and made sure the students weren’t getting bored.
FEAP 2b: Manages individual and class behaviors through a well-planned management system
When my group introduced each new section of the morning meeting we made sure to mention
how we wanted our students to participate. We decided against having our students call out since
it had the greatest potential to create problems and it would be harder to keep track of who didn’t
have a turn to speak. We decided for both the greeting and share to utilize the raise hand feature
on zoom so call on each student to speak. This ensured everyone who wanted to speak had a turn
and made sure no one was talking over each other. As for the activity we made sure everyone
had the opportunity to grab the materials and at the end of each round we would ask everyone to
hold up there paper with the answer on it.
FEAP 2c: Conveys high expectations to all students
Everyone in class during our greeting and group activity were expected to participate and pay
attention to whoever was speaking at the time. The only time that not everyone had to speak was
during the share portion but everyone was expected to pay attention and try to engage in the chat
if they could. My group made sure to monitor everyone’s screens to make sure everyone was
paying attention. We also would encourage everyone to speak and thanks them for speaking out
when they did.
FEAP 2e: Models clear, acceptable oral and written communication skills
When my group was doing the greeting and sharing portion of our morning meeting we made
sure to remind our students that we wanted them to be respectful. Everyone then had an
opportunity to speak and share their ideas as well as explain their ideas quickly. This gave
everyone a great opportunity to speak and communicate with one another. As for the group
activity, everyone had to write their answers on a sheet of paper. This was a good way to utilize
their written communication skills.
FEAP 2f: Maintains a climate of openness, inquiry, fairness and support
What I am most proud of from my group was the ability to create a fair and open climate in our
classroom. Everyone in the greeting had the chance to speak out and share the spotlight. This
was a great way to learn more about each other and also create a equal feeling in class. My group
also encouraged everyone the best we could and thanked everyone every time they shared. With
everyone having the opportunity to speak we were able to build relationships with our classmates
and create a positive atmosphere. According to Carrie Rothstein-Fisch and Elise Trumbull
(2008), “organization, especially the social organization that includes how students communicate
and interact with each other and the teacher, is also a key to an inclusive, supportive, and caring
environment,” (pg.2). Knowing this and reading about how organized communication can have a
positive impact on a classroom helped a lot with our morning meeting. I would say with
everyone having the chance to speak and share ideas our class has been able to create a safe
environment for all students.
References
Rothstein-Fisch, C., & Trumbull, E. (2008). Managing diverse classrooms : How to build on
students' cultural strengths. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com
Levin, J. & Nolan J. F. (2014). Principles of classroom management: A professional decision-
making model (7th ed.). Pearson.