Developing Classroom Protocols – Sample
Sticky Note Pile Up
This is an activity that can be used with students to establish norms
for collaborative group work.

Each student gets 4 or 5 sticky notes and writes one suggestion
on each note (examples: everyone gets a chance to talk, or
listen to each other, or be respectful to your group members,
everyone must contribute, etc) (Possible ideas that students
could use to reflect on: Conditions for groups activities that
they learned well in, conditions for groups that were not good
for you, the role that group members should play,…)

In groups of four the students compare their sticky notes and
pile the ones that are the same idea on top of each other

Two groups of four join and repeat the process making a bigger
pile of sticky notes of ideas that are the same

One group is selected to read their set of sticky piles and any
group who has a pile like that comes and puts them on the top
until all sticky notes are collected

Make a poster that captures all the norms for collaborative
group work for future reference
Other Purposes:


Pre review: Students write out 3 or 4 questions from the unit
that they are having difficulty with, together teacher and
students plan the review to reflect that
We used the strategy to determine the anticipated difficulties
that students would have with the Geese Population/Tire
Pressure (Honking) problems; posted it on mural paper and
then wrote scaffolding questions