Embedded Files
An essential skill of teaching is that of managing relationships with students and ensuring that relationships among students are positive and supportive. Teachers create an environment of respect and rapport in their classrooms by the ways they interact with students and by the interactions they encourage and cultivate among students. An important aspect of respect and rapport relates to how the teacher responds to students and how students are permitted to treat one another. Patterns of interactions are critical to the overall tone of the class. In a respectful environment, all students feel valued, safe, and comfortable taking intellectual risks. They do not fear put-downs or ridicule from either the teacher or other students. “Respect” shown to the teacher by students should be distinguished from students complying with standards of conduct and behavior.
Danielson, C. 2013
Artifact 2a-1
Artifact 2a-1
As a teacher, it is crucial to encourage good behavior and shut down bad behavior; however, it must be done in a respectful and professional way. Some thing that my mentor teacher has done to promote good behavior in her classroom was dividing her class into houses. Each house represents a behavioral value: respect, integrity, grit, leadership, and kindness. All students are put into a certain house. When the student shows goo behavior and demonstrates one of those attributes, they get a point for their house. The house with the most points at the end of the month gets a prize. When a student performs bad behavior, those points are taken from them. On the wall, there is a precept/ law that each of the students have signed to live by, to be kind, to be a leader, to have grit, to have integrity, and to have respect. When a student is out of line, the teacher refers the student to where they signed their name and how they signed to have those great qualities. This promotes a classroom of respect for both the teacher and the peers of the students.
Artifact 2a-2
Artifact 2a-2
A positive environment at school and especially in the classroom are essential for class progression and learning. By being respectful to other students, we can respectfully ask for their respect in return. This is an example of not only how students should treat their teachers, but also their peers. One way that I was able to create an environment of respect was an assignment in which I required each of the students to create a precept for themselves. As we were reading the book "Wonder" by R. J. Palacio with the students, we read about precepts and went over what a precept was. As we were going over this with the students, I created an assignment in which I had the students create their own precepts for them to live by. I created a list of possible precepts that they might want to choose from based on the value that it stood for. As a class, we went over our precepts, wrote them down in our school bullet journal, and wrote them on a card to take home. Students became very aware of what behavior they needed to have at school. Based on the precept they wrote, they were expected to act that way and live by it at school. An example of one of the precepts that students wrote is found below.
Page updated
Report abuse