Analyse Different Ways in Which You Would Establish Ground Rules with Your Learners, Which Underpin Behaviour and Respect for Others.

Ground rules are essential to creating a productive and harmonious learning environment and should be established at the earliest opportunity. Their purpose is to define the levels of required behaviour of both students and tutors in the learning environment  

The rules should not be imposed on others by any one party, as this creates reluctance towards abiding by them. The most effective way of establishing ground rules is first by discussing the importance of why ground rules are required. Then by using the process of negotiation between class members a general consensus can be reached about the ground rules

Depending on the number of class members an example would be to split the class into small groups. Then each group should be invited to brainstorm and write down their ideas for the ground rules. Once done, each group should present and discuss their ideas with the other group(s). When everyone has expressed their opinion, a final set of ground rules should be agreed. The ground rules do not have to be permanent and can be open for discussion and review throughout the course of learning by everyone.

Any variation of establishing the ground rules by group discussion and negotiation can be used to agree the ground rules. It is not just the contents of the ground rules produced that make this method a success. It is the sense of ownership that results when the rules are created and agreed as a group that means the group members will be more inclined to abide by the rules as opposed to when the rules were imposed upon them by someone else.