I teach high school math, and each year when school starts, I know some of my new students will probably walk into my classroom feeling some stress about the learning ahead. Some might feel worried about making mistakes and being “bad at math,” others might think that struggling with new concepts will demonstrate that they’re “not math people.” And if you’ve ever taught teenagers, you know that it’s also just easy for them to feel a little insecure about taking the risks of new learning in front of their peers.

I think learning math really can feel empowering for every student – that’s why I love teaching it! As math educators, our first step is simply making our classrooms feel like places where students can be themselves as they learn, and I rely on a few activities to create that space for my students beginning from day one of the school year. I use these strategies to show students that they don’t have to fit into our classroom culture or fit into any idea of what a “math person” is – instead, we’re going to build our classroom culture around who they already are and who they can become. After two weeks, not all my students are ready to describe themselves as math people, but they are ready to take chances together. Here are a few of the strategies I rely on to build this classroom culture throughout the first weeks of the new semester:

Name Tents

Immediately on our first day, I have my new students make name tents, and I invite them to add their pronouns as well. I want to start creating connections between who they are inside and outside our math classroom, so I ask them to draw a favorite extracurricular activity and their favorite math symbol. I tell them that mine is the equal sign because I feel like every child deserves the equal opportunity to learn math at high levels.

We go around the room, they each say their name, and they share their drawing or math symbol. I make sure they’re the ones saying their names for the first time, not me, and I make sure I hear each name right. This doesn’t sound like a big deal, but I think it’s really important that we show students respect by inviting them to teach us how to pronounce their names. I want every student to be the first one to put their names out into the new atmosphere of our classroom, because it empowers them to define themselves. I highly recommend this process for creating an affirming classroom culture – and it’s a powerful first step toward encouraging students to make “math person” part of the way they define themselves, too.

Group Interviews

From the first day, I really want my learners to get used to collaborating together, so we can boost everyone’s confidence and build a supportive classroom culture. That’s why, for our first two weeks, I have my students sit at the same group tables every day. And for our first group activity, I hand out a little set of question cards and have each student interview everyone at their table.

If you don’t have tables, you can still try this – your students just need to be able to talk in groups. Each student takes a card, and each card has a different question on it: things like “What is something that brings you joy?” or “What are your birthday traditions?” or “Who is your hero in life and why?” I think this activity works perfectly in small groups because it gets everyone interacting without any performance pressure. Students who might feel intimidated by giving their answers in front of the whole class can feel a lot more comfortable sharing within the back-and-forth of their small group. I love how quickly students build connections, and that gets them ready to tackle our first team math station activity together.

Collaborative Math Teams

This is my next step in building a positive classroom community – and building a sense of fun and excitement about learning math together. First, I set up 11 whiteboard stations in my room. Picture a whiteboard on a wall, another one stuck to a window and another one on the back of the door, and you have the idea. This was inspired by a book called Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics. These boards help to make student thinking visible and give them an intentional way to collaborate. Each day , I assign students randomly to teams: I hand out 11 different cards, and they go to the team that matches their card. The cards that I hand out have pictures of diverse mathematicians and scientists. This doesn’t have to be fancy: You could just put a number at each station and hand out numbers. It just ensures that every day, students are meeting up in different teams in front of different whiteboards. When they get there, they each work on a new math task with their new team.

This structure of creating random groups at vertical whiteboards encourages students to take the collaboration and inclusion they started practicing in their table groups on day one and apply it to working with new people. Each day, before they get into teams, I ask questions like “What does it mean to work collaboratively when you only have one dry erase marker to share?” or “How can you create an inclusive discussion when one person is staying quiet and another person is talking a lot?” We talk it through and create simple rubrics for collaboration, then they go to their stations and put it into practice. They start every team activity by trading introductions and making each other feel welcome. Teenagers aren’t yet in the habit of doing that the way adults are, so the more they do it, the more they take ownership of building a classroom culture that they want to be part of. And the more they do it, the more they transition to talking about math naturally, without anxiety. That’s exactly how students who think they’re “not math people” become confident participants in math class.

These activities and structures get rave reviews from my students. During the first two weeks, I continue to pass out the name tents for them to set up at their tables. We start every day with an inclusion question. I call each student’s name, and they have the opportunity to answer the question or pass. I learn so much about my students’ likes, dislikes, goals, aspirations, and cultures through their answers to these questions, and they learn about each other. After our inclusion discussion, they collaborate on a new math task at their stations. This is because I want to be really intentional in reminding them that they’re important to me and they’re important within our classroom culture. I want students to walk into my room, see the little drawings and symbols they added to their name tents and feel inspired to bring their full selves into our class discussions and their team activities.

After about two weeks, we put the name tents away. I go around the room and demonstrate that I know everyone’s name and exactly how to say each one, and then we have a little celebration of our community. It’s just the beginning – I know my students will still face frustrations and doubt their math abilities in the year to come. But I also know we’ve built a foundation that will make it so much easier for them to accept my encouragement, accept one another’s support and keep pushing ahead.