The Handbook for Poor Students, Rich Teaching. Eric Jensen
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out (Jimerson, Egeland, Sroufe, & Carlson, 2000).
The next three chapters offer the following strategies to help you build relationships with your students that will get them on board emotionally and socially.
1. Personalize the learning.
2. Connect everyone for success.
3. Show empathy.
In these chapters, you’ll see how relationships offer the emotional environment through which all course content flows. There is no classroom content without some sort of context, even if the context is a digital device. Let’s dig in.
Questions for Daily Reflection
Each day, consider your own mindset for fostering connection and relationships with your students, and answer the following questions.
1. Have I recently seen other teachers successfully build quality relationships with their students? How did they do it? Could I do something similar?
2. Which students in my classroom have I not taken the time to get to know? In what ways can I connect with those students that will make a difference for them?
3. Are there students in my classroom who appear to feel unsafe, not respected, or disconnected from their peers? How can I change those things?
CHAPTER 1
PERSONALIZE THE LEARNING
Think about the faces you see in your classroom every day. How many of these students are more than faces? How many can you look at and say that you know something personal about them, about their lives and the challenges they face? Take a moment to think about how you make learning in your classroom personal. As you consider your current practices, fill out the survey in figure 1.1.
Figure 1.1: Assess how well you personalize learning in your classroom.
Visit go.SolutionTree.com/instruction for a free reproducible version of this figure.
As you reflect on your answers, remember that to get personal in this context means connecting in a personal way so that your teaching gets students to perk up and pay attention to that which is relevant: themselves. Even if you can say that you make an effort to make the learning in your classroom personal, there is always room to re-examine your practices and look for ways to improve. That’s why this chapter is all about fostering teacher-student relationships by creating a culture of personalization. In this chapter, you will engage with the following four strategies.
1. Learn students’ names.
2. Create a Me Bag.
3. Share an everyday problem.
4. Share progress on goals.
The strategies in this chapter lay the groundwork that makes the other mindsets in this book effective; as you engage with them, reflect on what you already do and how you can evolve your existing practices. Maybe it will also inspire you to add something new.
Learn Students’ Names
To create a culture of personalization starting on day one, learn every student’s name, and make sure students all know each other. Neither you nor your students need to be a memory champ to do this. You just need to care and take the time to set up the learning process, then practice, just like the students in your class. When you use a student’s name, be sure to smile and make eye contact. Many times, a simple handshake or other appropriate connection will show a lot to your students (you care). You may already be great at learning student names; but even if you are, many of your students have a hard time remembering the names of their peers, which is also important for the relational mindset. In this section, you’ll find strategies to help both you and your students learn each other’s names.
Name-Learning Strategies for Students
There are many smart ways to remember names and faces. One of the simplest is to first put your brain in a curious state. Say to yourself, “OK, what is this student’s name? Is it __________________?” That primes the brain to care and to listen better. Then, when you hear the name, use it! Use it under different circumstances such as standing, sitting, when giving a compliment, or standing at the door. You can also put together notecards on each student that you update as you learn about them and use those as often as necessary for you to remember details about him or her. See figure 1.2. Note you don’t necessarily have to take your own photos for these profile cards. Most schools keep student profile photos you can access.
Having tools like this to help you keep track of your students can significantly speed up the process of getting to know them, but you have many other options at your disposal. Here are some strategies for learning names.
• Introductions: At the start of the school year, have students say their first names every time they speak. Do this for the first thirty class days (if you have thirty students, or twenty days if you have twenty students).
• Desk nametags: Have students create desk nametags from single index cards or cardstock (fold the paper in half horizontally). Have a box for each class of nametags and ask students to pick them up and return them to the box each period. The hard (but good) part is after two weeks, you pick out each name and try to place it on the right student’s desk.
• Checks: When students are writing, ask yourself quietly, “What’s his or her name?” Try to answer it first, then walk over, and check out your answer by looking at the student’s name on a paper or asking.
Figure 1.2: Student profile card.
Visit go.SolutionTree.com/instruction for a free reproducible version of this figure.
• Alliteration: Link a word that begins with the same consonant as the student’s first name. Use connections like, “Laura longhair,” “Benny in a bowtie,” “Michael has a motorcycle,” and “Jasmine likes jam.” Then, visualize the connection in your mind’s eye.
• Self quizzes: As students enter the class, greet them by name, or ask them to give you a prompt or cue to trigger their name. Tell students they can’t enter your classroom until you say their names correctly. Then, use their names as you make eye contact and give a compliment. (“Eric, good to see you today.”)
• Likes: Do a quick energizer by asking students to stand in areas of the room by likes or dislikes. (“If you like green vegetables, stand over there. Stand over here if you are a St. Louis Cardinals fan.”) The point of this activity is to help you remember students by associating them with their preferences. If you print out profile cards for your students (refer to figure 1.2), you can jot down notes about each student’s answer on their profile card.
• Nametags: For the first two weeks or so have students wear nametags. Make a contest to see who can learn the most names in class. For younger students, tags will last longer on their backs.
• Rhyming: Link a word that sounds like the student’s first name to each student. (“Jamal at the mall,” “Tim is slim,” or “Jake swims in a lake.”)
• “I’m going shopping” game: Students stand up, one by one. The game begins like this: “My name is Eric, and I am buying medicine for my earache.” The next student stands and says, “His name is Eric, and he is buying medicine for his earache. My name is Kim, and I am buying a coke.” Each student stands, repeats prior students’ statements, and adds his or her own shopping item. You can be the last person to add