Building on Relationships

It is imperative for students and teachers to have positive relationships within the classroom in order to build and maintain a positive learning environment. For this to happen, there are several strategies that need to be implemented in order to establish a sense of community safe for all students to learn in.  These approaches need to focus on the teacher and student relationships, as well as the student-to-student relationships.   In order to build in teacher-student relationships, I will employ the following strategies:

 

Praise, Prompt and Leave

One of the strategies that I will employ more effectively in my classroom deals with the way I help students out as I walk around the room as they are independently working.  Most teachers try to help students as quickly as they can so that they can help as many students as they can.  Often times, teachers scan student work for mistakes, point them out, and then suggest ways to correct their mistakes.  This may seem the most energy effective way to do things, but it often gives the students a sense of inadequacy, or frustration because they did not receive any positive feedback.  Teachers are not intentionally trying to send that message, however, it comes across that way.   This also goes for behavior issues as well, students that misbehave often times do so for attention, or trying to avoid doing the work.  Teachers then seem to focus more on the negative aspects of the situation, and promote a negative message as well.  “Even though [the] teacher’s statement is intentional and intended to motivate the student to behave properly, the student receives it as punitive, unfair and disinviting,” (Jones & Jones p. 95, 2007).  In order to avoid creating this idea, I intend to employ the idea of “Praise, Prompt and Leave” in my classroom. 

Dr. Fred Jones, spoke at my school’s professional development workshop this past summer, and he spent some time promoting the “Praise, Prompt and Leave” method from his book “Tools of Learning” to us.  In order to promote a positive learning environment for students, the teacher spends 20-30 seconds with students that need help finding something good that they have done, steering them towards the next step, and leaving quietly so that they do not disrupt the thought process.  It builds on a student’s sense of self-worth and also uses constructive criticism to guide them to the right answer.

 

Eating Lunch with Students

Another way to promote positive teacher-student relationships is to get to know them outside of the classroom setting.  One of the easiest ways to do this is by spending time eating lunch with the students.  Most teachers in my school use their lunch break to complain about their day, or about something that is bothering them, mainly a student or two in the class, and I often avoid sitting with them at lunch as a result, I often spend my lunch at my desk checking my email, or doing work.  Occasionally I do travel to the lunchroom, but when I do, it is only to buy my lunch.  Several weeks ago, I was walking back to my room, when a student stopped me and asked if I wanted to join their game of Uno, which I agreed to, and sat down.  Although it felt strange at first, I had a lot of fun, and the students did too.  Later that day, the students I played cards with, were very attentive to the lesson, and were bragging to others that I sat with them at lunch.  The effect I had on them was quite positive, and I will employ this more frequently in the future.

This can be an effective method to reach those students that do not always participate in class because you are inviting them to talk to you outside of class, in an informal setting.  “Most teacher-student contact occurs in the presence of twenty-five to thirty other children.  Unless they take the initiative by staying after school, students may never have individual private time with their teacher,” (Jones & Jones, p. 89, 2007). 

 

Listening to students

Something that goes hand in hand with eating lunch with the students is actually listening to them and hearing what they have to say.  It instills in them the idea that their ideas and views are being valued and appreciated, and ultimately makes them feel more respected in your class.  At some point or another in a teacher’s career, at least one student will come to them with a problem or concern that they would like help with, regardless of whether or not it is school related or not.  Often times, the teacher does not listen, or give them a quick answer.  A study reported by Jones and Jones (p. 105, 2007), states that roughly 95% of all behavior problems result from a student’s attempt to have someone listen to them.  One has to wonder what this number would be if students had the attention and help they desired. 

One of the things that I thought of when reading about this idea, was a student that was in my class my first year of teaching.  By far, she was not the best student in the class, often times acting out and turning in little to no work.  One day after school, she came to me before her basketball game and started complaining about a guy she liked and how she was frustrated with him during the day and how she spent most of the day texting him during class.  After letting her vent her frustration for a while, I gave her some feedback on what I thought she should do, and told her that although she should have focusing on school, that what she did was understandable, and that she should think about why she liked him.  By listening to her, and not judging her, she grew to respect me, and to this day stops by every few months just to say hi and to get advice.

The district in which I teach in has quite a large portion of the students who come from broken homes, often times not having someone they can turn to for advice.  Having someone to talk to in this manner is quite beneficial for them because it gives them the support they need.  “Students learn that their feelings are acceptable, which reduces the tension and anxiety associated with having to hide one’s true feelings.  This act in turn makes students feel more accepted,”  (Jones & Jones, p. 106, 2007). 

 

Students do not always respect each other, and ultimately struggle to work cooperatively together during class time.  In order to build on their peer relationships in my room, I will use the following strategies:

 

Cooperative Group Competitions

In one of my classes, I constantly see students putting each other down, often disrespecting each other through rude comments, throwing things at each other or even name calling.  The past few weeks, I have been building a plan to teach these students how to work together as a group to accomplish a common goal.  In order to initiate this idea of teamwork, I have created a program where students are competing in a sticker race.  Teams are rewarded stickers for working well on class assignments as a group, for completing their homework everyday, having the highest group average on tests, and other basic activities we complete in the course of the day.  Although I brought the idea up at the beginning of this past week, I will use some team building activities for warm-up activities in the coming weeks. 

One of the activities that I plan on using is having each team create their own sense of identity by creating their own “flag” to be displayed on their desks every class.  This will allow them to create a sense of team unity, as well as to demonstrate their artisitic side.  Other activities I plan on using I found at the site “Teaching Tips: Team Building Activities for Middle School Students” published by emints.org http://www.emints.org/ethemes/resources/S00001825.shtml?prnfriendly.  This website has links to a variety of activities that can be used in the classroom to build on teamwork skills.

 

Building Student Self Esteem Through Peer Comments

In the course of the block, students in that same class make rude comments about others several times throughout a single class.  This has become quite a problem especially among my female students, sometimes resulting with students leaving the room to take a break or calling home to explain why they are serving a detention later that week.  In an attempt to create positive peer comments during a warm-up activity this week, I will use an activity called “A Fan of Validation” from Performance Learning System’s Teambuilding page. (2005).  In this activity, students construct a paper fan out of a sheet of paper, and write their name on the first fold.  Students then pass their fans around and under each flap, other students write positive comments about them.  This way, students must make positive comments about everyone in the class, and ultimately raise their self-esteem from what others have said about them. 

Group Decision Making

 

Part of having an effective learning environment is using students’ input as a motivational tool.  Often times, I see students not hand in work, never come prepared to class, or do a number of things that result in disrupting their learning process.  As part of the team-building problem in that second block class, I will have them create a consequence list for their peers so they feel a sense of ownership in the classroom setting.  This is something that has been done countless times throughout the educational system, but I have not employed it yet, but will soon.  Jones and Jones (p. 142, 2007) point out that this will build on their group cohesiveness and also act as a motivational tool to others brought on by positive peer pressure. 

 

Teachers deal with a variety of problems throughout the course of the year, and through flexibility, ingenuity, creativity and kindness they can solve almost all problems that arise.  In order to be an effective teacher, it is necessary to realize that students are people too, and they deserve to be shown respect, even though we as teachers do not always receive respect from them. 

 

References:

(2004, December 7). Teaching Tips: Team Building Activities for Middle School Students. Retrieved March 21, 2009, from eMints: http://www.emints.org/ethemes/resources/S00001825.shtml

(2005, May 6). Team Building Activities. Retrieved March 21, 2009, from Performance Learning Systems: http://www.plsweb.com/resources/newsletters/enews_archives/44/2005/05/06

Jones, F. H. (2007). Tools For Learning. Santa Cruz, CA: Fredric H. Jones and Associates Inc.

Jones, V., & Jones, L. (2007). Comprehensive classroom management: Creating communities of support and solving problems (Laureate Education, Inc., Custom 8th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.