My current question is..

I have decided to narrow down my question. My original question was, "What is the evidence of community in my classroom?" and "What is the evidence that my students are learning to be critical thinkers?"

At this point, I am feeling I want to focus on just the community building aspect in my classroom. By having two big questions, I was unable to focus on either aspect. It was too confusing to think about those two aspects simultaneously.

Why is it important to operate as a community? What benefits do I see for students if effort is put into building community? How would my classroom look different from one where I am not making a special effort towards this goal? What am I doing differently this year and how are students exhibiting any signs of increased comfort level, empathy and caring for their peers?

Although I am not consciously thinking about my question each day as I go to work, there are some things I am consciously doing with the intention of building community. I start Mondays with a Class Meeting and allot ample time to the meeting itself for its own sake. In the past, meeting was something I did for the sake of the kids so they could get their sharing out of the way and we could start the week. Now, I take the time to listen to what they share, what is important to them and take the time to teach students to participate in the sharing, how to allow students to share uninterrupted, the order in which I facilitate sharing, how they ask questions and/or piggy back on other people's ideas.

In the process of figuring out what kind of data would best give me evidence of how children perceive our group, it was pointed out to me that it was important I hammer out the definition of a "community of learners" which sounds on target to me. My next step is to identify my own vision of what a community of learners looks like.