Charlotte (2012). http://fabulous5thgradefun.blogspot.ca/2012/08/getting-to-know-your-who.html
Teachers and students are together on average 5 days a week, 6 hours a day, 10 months of the year so it is pretty easy to get familiar with one another. What we as teacher need to do is use this familiarity to provide students with the best possible learning opportunities. Getting to know your students can be vital in order to recognize their strengths and weaknesses, and influence the way you teach them, (Drake, Reid, & Kolohan, 2014). Although there are some parts of the curriculum that we will be teaching year after year, every student and how they learn will be different. In order to maintain a growth mindset teachers need to be willing to evolve their techniques rather than just giving lessons or assessments the same way over and over because they ‘worked’ a few times.
Getting to know students interests and experiences can help us make students more interested in what is being taught, especially if we can take those interests and create a connection to the curriculum. I think these is sometimes a stigma around teaching in that people think our approach is “we’re just going to give you the information and if you can’t learn it, that’s your fault.” Getting to know what our students like and dislike, what they are good at, what they need help with, and what teaching methods works best, will show people that our intent is for students to succeed, not to just throw curriculum at them.
The benefits of actually learning about your students are endless. We don’t even have to keep the learning restricted to just in the class. Drake et al., (2014) discuss how learning about students’ home lives, including social, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds can help us enhance their experiences in the classroom. We can find ways to create a classroom environment that adheres to everyone. For example if we know students come from a lower SES area we can do our best to provide snacks, for students from different cultures we can find ways to include their diversity, and even more we can find ways to make all these unique attributes connect to curriculum to make learning relevant and interesting.
THIS BLOG by Education World outlines some amazing thought on the value of actually getting to know your students. The allow us to recognize changes in emotion which can help to see if students are having good or bad days. They let us see them as unique personalities, which can be beneficial in seeing who works well together and defusing problems. Additionally, it tells students that you care about them as people, which can help you gain respect in the classroom.
There are tons of resources on line as well that can aid teachers to developing positive relationships with their students. THIS WEBSITE by OLE Community has made a list of creative ways to get to know your students and build a strong environment. The image on the right is from a website call Teachers Pay Teachers that offers resources. A sheet as simple as this can help build a bond.
From a students perspective I know how valuable these bonds can be to build with a teachers. In high school I had some issues resulting in a suspension, but because I had already developed ties with my teachers they were all really kind and understanding. No one made me feel like I was a bad kid, just made a bad decision. One even said that if anyone gave me a hard time to let them know and she would take care of it. These responses made me feel really respected and made me more determined to do well in class, especially in the ones of the teachers who reached out to me. I hope that by getting to know my students I will be able to develop these relationships that inspire children to succeed and give them the best possible learning environment.
References
Charlotte (2012). http://fabulous5thgradefun.blogspot.ca/2012/08/getting-to-know-your-who.html
Drake, S. M., Reid, J. L., & Kolohon, W. (2014). Interweaving Curriculum and Classroom Assessment: Engaging the 21st Century Learner. Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press.
Education World (2012). The secret weapon: Getting to know your students. The New Teacher Advisor. http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/columnists/mcdonald/mcdonald013.shtml
OLE Community (2013). 56 creative ways to get to know your class. http://olecommunity.com/56-ways-to-get-to-know-your-class/
Teachers Pay Teachers (2012). "Getting to Know You"- learn about each student in your class. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Getting-to-Know-You-learn-about-each-student-in-your-class-246790
Dear Lauren!
ReplyDeleteFirst, your title and your image you have at the top are a great connection and is definitely something that catches the readers eye! As I read through your blog, I really started buying into the process of knowing your students more than I already did. You make some great points about not only changing our teaching style but maybe even our classroom to fit the needs of students from different SES's. Again, as you mention the ideas or endless and we as teachers shouldn't be limited to how we alter or impact a child's life.
A personal story where a teacher really connected with me and a relationship grew is when I was in grade 7. I had a teacher who was always interested in my sports, my after school life and more importantly my education. He always wanted to know how I was doing or what I needed help in and to this day I can't thank him enough. This connection we built really made me feel comfortable in his class and definitely enhanced my learning!
Overall your post was fantastic and your picture on the right allows us to learn ways at which we can get to know our students!
Have a great day!
Hi Lauren,
ReplyDeleteThanks for another engaging blog, chock full with images and links that were relevant to your topic-- the importance of getting to know your students. I could not agree more with this idea and the implications that you brought up such as how it can help develop a community of respect and provide better opportunities for success. Over the reading week I completed my placement for our other education course and the teacher I observed was a great example of the significance and benefit of getting to know students well. It was particularly important for her one student who was suffering from school anxiety and panic attacks and returned to school after a few days away the previous week. As it was this student's first day back, the teacher allowed this student to stay in at recesses and help her as this made her feel more comfortable than going outside with her peers. Being able to build this personal relationship helped the student develop trust with her teacher and made for an overall more successful school day! This is just one real-world example of everything you discussed here and how truly crucial it is in our future classrooms, so I thought I'd share it with you!
Thanks for the post and including that worksheet from Teachers Pay Teachers... what a great idea! I've heard this website is a great resource for us to keep on hand!
To start, great choice of topic for this weeks blog! The idea of knowing your students’ individual needs is something that we as teacher candidates have been learning about for the past four years of our educational careers. You, however, have taken the notion of knowing each need to the next level - building individual relationships which each and every student. In my experience, the ability to build a relationship with my teachers mostly came easily to me - I was a student who was quite open about getting extra help when necessary, or asking lots and lots of questions for clarification. I found that the more comfortable I felt with a particular teacher, the more willing I was to open up to them and establish some sort of correspondence. The teachers that I did become close with though, all share a few characteristics - which you have actually made note of in your blog above. The teachers made a point to get to know personal interests and experiences of their students, and expanded from just knowing their students in the classroom. Getting to know about family dynamics, extra curricular activities and other matters outside of the school created bonds that consequently helped on an academic level as well. While reading this blog, one specific quote that was presented in a TedTalk in a previous education class immediately came to mind. Rita Pearson, a former teacher, stated that “Every child deserves a champion”. It is therefore our job, as future educators to become that champion to as many students as possible. In getting to know each student on a personal level in the best way one can, students will become more comfortable and be more likely to flourish knowing that at least somebody cares for and believes in them. It is my hope to be able to go the extra step and implement such ideas as the ‘getting to know you’ sheets, and other similar designs to build those necessary relationships with my students in the future.
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