Component of building positive relationships
Explain your vision of the ideal learning environment for the age and subject you intend to teach in a 2 page original paper. You must answer the questions below, using a 12 point font and double spaced; answers written under the question; cite relevant sources See example below and see attached rubric for completing these 3 question
1. How do you create and maintain a mutually respectful and collaborative class of actively engaged learners? Include how it responds to student needs and incorporates student strengths and personal experiences. You must use research to support your selection of these strategies and identify and explain the research.
2. What strategies will you use to build relationships with students? Use research to support your selection of these strategies and identify and explain the research.
3. How will you physically organize your classroom to ensure flexibility and accommodate the learning needs of all students including those with disabilities? Consider things such as the three zones of proximity and furniture.
Example:
1. How do you create and maintain a mutually respectful and collaborative class of actively engaged learners? Include how it responds to student needs and incorporates student strengths and personal experiences. You must support your selection of these strategies and identify and explain the research.
In order to create and maintain a mutually respectful and collaborative class of actively engaged learners, a teacher must create good relationships with students, and create and clearly communicate an ethos that sustains participation and cooperation to reach a common goal. That goal is mastery of the content. Although what exactly constitutes ethos in the classroom is debated (Donnelly 2000; Solvason 2005) it is agreed that developing and maintaining a classroom ethos is important in promoting student learning and achieving quality education (McLaughlin 2005). This foundation supports a teacher to create an environment where all students feel safe, valued, and ready to learn in collaboration with their teacher and their classmates. According to Solvason (2005) ethos is not something you can touch, but rather “the feeling” of the classroom.” The ethos of the classroom is the philosophy that guides the creation of classroom management strategies, classroom organization and expectations for student behavior. Teacher expectations are also a key part of the classroom management strategy that forms an ideal learning environment. A teacher must believe that all his students can achieve mastery of the objectives. Students tend to confirm teacher expectations (Brophy & Good 1974), so believing and modeling to students that mastery of the objectives is within all students’ grasps is essential to overall student success. It is also essential that the teacher have high expectations of themselves as well. “If a teacher does not believe in his job, does not enjoy the learning he is trying to transmit, the student will sense this and derive the entirely rational conclusion that the particular subject is not worth mastering” (Csikszentmihalyi 1997). Clear Communication is also a pillar of a successful classroom. Teachers must be able to translate jargon filled objectives into student-friendly language. In tandem with high expectations, clearly communicated behavioral expectations are essential to classroom management. Effective teachers use classroom management not to control student behavior, but to influence and direct it in a constructive manner to set the stage for instruction (McLeod, Fisher, & Hoover, 2003). Consistent routines also lend to effective student learning and the minimization of distraction. The teacher’s expectation should be that students enter the classroom ready to learn. A good way to implement this is to have daily bell work. Bell work helps to untether the student’s mind from what is going on outside the classroom and settle their thinking on the day’s learning objective. The teacher then transitions to instruction by referencing the contents of the bell work and links it to the lesson.
2. What strategies will you use to build relationships with students? Use research to support your selection of these strategies and identify and explain the research.
Building positive relationships with students and parents is a good place to start an effective classroom management strategy. It is important that the teacher get to know each student and that the students get to know the teacher. Teachers may be tempted to go straight into content when the school year starts but taking the time to create relationships and community with students pays dividends later in the year. Authenticity is an essential component of building positive relationships and teachers must come across as genuine and caring to parents and students. This requires the teacher to be passionate, knowledgeable, self-aware, balanced and fair, and consistent. (De Bruyckere and Kirschner 2016). These characteristics should be modeled by the teacher, and this helps to create a foundation of the mutual respect that will make the classroom successful. In a participatory, collaborative classroom, questioning is essential, and students must feel safe to ask questions and give answers that may be incorrect without fear of intimidation. Teachers should encourage and model curiosity about the subject matter, thus stimulating students’ innate curiosity and making it possible for students to generate good questions. The teacher can provide a powerful model by providing examples of ways that students can support one another. Each student brings her own personal experience to the class and this enriches everyone. Teachers must also recognize and praise students’ use of positive collaborative communication (Bridges, 1995).
3. How will you physically organize your classroom to ensure flexibility and accommodate the learning needs of all students including those with disabilities? Consider things such as the three zones of proximity and furniture.
The aspects of classroom organization that are utilized are those that focus on the physical environment. A collaborative classroom consists of tables or individual flat-top desks that can be arranged in groups of about four students. The classroom is organized such that students know how to access items like calculators, pencil sharpeners and mini-whiteboards. It may take some time for students to learn how to access all the materials in the classroom, but – in time – consistent classroom organization will lend to the optimization of student learning and reduce distractions. It is almost impossible for students to learn in a chaotic, poorly managed classroom (Wang, Haertel, and Walberg, 1993). Fred Jones (2007) proposes arranging tables such that an interior loop is created. This minimizes the number of green zones that are farther from the teacher, allowing more flexibility in seating students who are more likely to go off task. The most basic factor that governs the likelihood of student misbehavior is their physical distance from the teacher. By utilizing both proximity and movement, teachers can optimize the positive impact that their presence has on students. Simply by moving in the direction of burgeoning misbehavior, a teacher can quickly reduce the likelihood of escalation and redirect student attention to the task at hand. Students with special needs face many challenges when entering the classroom. School furniture is often inadequate for providing the physical support students need to learn. For proper learning to occur, high and low seating options should be made available with some desks in a bar style, higher up off the floor and others at the standard level. Placing high desks in the back of the classroom prevents students who are sitting there from having to look over and around the students sitting closer to the front. Teachers cannot always control the sizes of the classroom or the size of the class. Classrooms should always make space by the door for the entry of wheelchairs and seats closes to the door made available to students who use wheelchairs.
4. Explain how your behavior management plan supports your vision for the ideal learning environment.
