In such a human-centered profession as teaching, there are few things as influential as relationships when it comes to the outcomes of education. If students feel that they have an enjoyable and valuable connection with a teacher or classroom, they will put forth great effort to maintain or strengthen that connection.
One of the simplest ways to build relationships with students is to be available, to have time where students are engaged in activity but the teacher can be approached by any given one. Such availability allows individual students to begin building a relationship with you at their own pace and comfort level. My CM is great at this. He always structures class so that students are working independently at least two different times, which leaves him free to perform one-on-one interactions. He also lets it be known that students can approach him during his planning periods, and indeed many current and former students swing by between classes sometimes with issues to discuss and sometimes just to say hello.
An additional component is not only being available but appearing available. This is something my CM does a bit less. Even when he's free, he sometimes looks busy. When he's not in front of the class, he's often using his computer at his desk. This makes it less likely that students will approach him, and I can say that confidently because I am a student teacher and even I sometimes hesitate to approach him in these moments because he seems unapproachable. When I was a student in high school, I was shy with some teachers and hesitant to raise my hand or approach their desk. But when they circulated about the room and came down my row, I would be more likely to speak to them because to do so required less effort and less risk on my part. I think our current classroom environment would thrive if both my CM and I spent more time circulating among the students. As it stands right now, we usually make one or two sweeps each, returning to the anchor of our desks afterward.
The question that arises for me regarding this is how best to strike a balance of providing direct engagement/relationship building/circulation while also giving the students space to explore and grow on their own and build relationships with one another. I want to be involved in my students lives, for sure, but I don't want to smother, baby, or micro-manage them.
This week, we spent three days on a group project. I've always had mixed feelings about group projects because in my experience they can be fun, but it almost always feel like the amount of learning actually happening is disproportionate (in a bad way) to the amount of time being spent. This may very well be true as it relates to academic learning, but what I'm starting to realize is that group projects, even if no academic learning occurs, are great vehicles for social learning and for community building. They help students get comfortable with being in the classroom together, and this comfort promotes better learning in future lessons. Group projects also provide an opportunity for students to build skill asking questions, creating and adhering to a timetable, delegating tasks, and discovering skills and weaknesses of themselves and their peers.
Group projects may be the answer to my earlier dilemma of striking a balance between teacher engagement and student freedom. These projects are messy chaotic endeavors, but they teach students social skills as well as how to think for and manage themselves, while also freeing the teacher up to move from group to group interacting on a level more personal than is possible with whole class instruction.
In such a human-centered profession as teaching, there are few things as influential as relationships when it comes to the outcomes of education. If students feel that they have an enjoyable and valuable connection with a teacher or classroom, they will put forth great effort to maintain or strengthen that connection.
One of the simplest ways to build relationships with students is to be available, to have time where students are engaged in activity but the teacher can be approached by any given one. Such availability allows individual students to begin building a relationship with you at their own pace and comfort level. My CM is great at this. He always structures class so that students are working independently at least two different times, which leaves him free to perform one-on-one interactions. He also lets it be known that students can approach him during his planning periods, and indeed many current and former students swing by between classes sometimes with issues to discuss and sometimes just to say hello.
An additional component is not only being available but appearing available. This is something my CM does a bit less. Even when he's free, he sometimes looks busy. When he's not in front of the class, he's often using his computer at his desk. This makes it less likely that students will approach him, and I can say that confidently because I am a student teacher and even I sometimes hesitate to approach him in these moments because he seems unapproachable.
[Wow, that is an interesting observation. One to keep forefront when you are teaching.]
When I was a student in high school, I was shy with some teachers and hesitant to raise my hand or approach their desk. But when they circulated about the room and came down my row, I would be more likely to speak to them because to do so required less effort and less risk on my part. I think our current classroom environment would thrive if both my CM and I spent more time circulating among the students. As it stands right now, we usually make one or two sweeps each, returning to the anchor of our desks afterward.
[what if you shake up the teacher desk paradigm?]
The question that arises for me regarding this is how best to strike a balance of providing direct engagement/relationship building/circulation while also giving the students space to explore and grow on their own and build relationships with one another. I want to be involved in my students lives, for sure, but I don't want to smother, baby, or micro-manage them.
This week, we spent three days on a group project. I've always had mixed feelings about group projects because in my experience they can be fun, but it almost always feel like the amount of learning actually happening is disproportionate (in a bad way) to the amount of time being spent. This may very well be true as it relates to academic learning, but what I'm starting to realize is that group projects, even if no academic learning occurs, are great vehicles for social learning and for community building.
[arh! If scaffolded properly, both social and academic advancement will happen in groups.]
They help students get comfortable with being in the classroom together, and this comfort promotes better learning in future lessons. Group projects also provide an opportunity for students to build skill asking questions, creating and adhering to a timetable, delegating tasks, and discovering skills and weaknesses of themselves and their peers.
Group projects may be the answer to my earlier dilemma of striking a balance between teacher engagement and student freedom. These projects are messy chaotic endeavors, but they teach students social skills as well as how to think for and manage themselves, while also freeing the teacher up to move from group to group interacting on a level more personal than is possible with whole class instruction.
[Looks like we have a lot to talk about with cooperative learning. I sense a fair bit of negative baggage on your end – given the snippets you told me about your HS experience I can see how you may be jaded about anything that happened in that part of your life. There is more to it than just putting s’s into group. With good scaffolding and engaging material both social and academic growth are possible. We’ll continue this in person.]