Ice Breakers + The Affective Filter

    If you want to kill a few minutes, go ahead and Google "teacher ice breaker memes" and see what kind of content pops up. I see the one below quite often from BoredTeachers: 

It gives me a giggle each time I see it because while I generally enjoy a good ice breaker, there have been moments where I wasn't ready or "in the mood" to participate in one. As I scroll through my social media feeds, I notice many educators create posts or write comments about the all-staff ice breaker, and many of the posts do not share warm and fuzzy feelings about them. It made me want to reflect deeper on this practice for both educators and for students. 

    As a multilingual educator, I am reflective about ways to lower the affective filter for students. I always take time to ensure that activities are scaffolded so that students feel ready to participate meaningfully in a low-stakes setting. I also know that as educators, we are eager to build community in our classrooms and we want to nurture friendships and an overall sense of belonging in our learning spaces. As we approach the beginning of the school year where these activities tend to pop up more often, I encourage all of us to reflect on the practice of ice-breakers. 

    While ice breakers are generally intended to be fun, engaging, and sometimes lighthearted, they can also cause a lot of anxiety for our students. We should consider the purpose of the ice-breaker. Is it to get students to engage in social conversations? Is it to energize a class? Be intentional and match the purpose to the activity. 

One thing for us to consider is the timing. If your ice-breaker is at the very beginning of the morning or at the beginning of your class, students may not feel fully awake or ready to engage in conversations with their peers. There's an idea that certain types of ice-breakers are energizers- but not all ice breakers have that intention or ability. 

    Unfortunately, many times ice-breakers can become confidence-killers. When students are uncomfortable doing these tasks or they are feeling less confident, they are more likely to disengage with the task, their peers, the classroom community, or even the content area itself. Let's consider some of these moments within an ice-breaker that can generate feelings of being uncomfortable: 

    For the student sorting sticks, click here to view a free, downloadable, printable resource. Click here to find a clock buddy template. I would even structure the Clock Buddy set-up slightly differently where you could structure the ways to find each buddy appointment. 

    Oral language opportunities are so important and critical to student's social-emotional development (as well as language development). If we provide structures to lower the affective filter, students are much more likely to engage comfortably in ice-breaker activities! 

Adults

    As for the adults you work with, please keep in mind that we also have SEL needs. Not all of us feel comfortable getting up and roaming around the room to discuss topics with folks we don't yet know as well. Please consider ways for folks to participate while at their seats (with digital tools such as AnswerGarden, MentiMeter, Slido, or others). Perhaps, the folks who feel comfortable can get up and "roam the room" while others participate digitally from their seats. We tend to be more responsive to students' SEL needs than the adults we work with, so it's important to consider ice breakers through their lens as well. There are other ways to build a sense of community that feels comfortable to all. Also, doing so models all of the scaffolds, supports, and differentiation ideas that we always tend to preach about but often fail to demonstrate in professional learning settings!