Asset Based Dispositions
In undergraduate school, you go through many courses to teach you how to become an educator. In those courses, you learn about data investigation and how to look for the students who are below grade level and find ways to provide intervention to close gaps.
By only focusing on the areas of student weaknesses, we are showing them that here are the things you are not able to do. This really creates a mindset for the student that could potentially be disastrous for their education. "This continual focus on "the problem" may lead to individuals feeling as if all they have are problems or communities believing that all they have are deficits. As a result of this negative mindset, a widespread belief may start to settle in about the individuals, organization, or community being depressed, burned out, dysfunctional, just filled with problems—all of which makes the initial situation even worse. It also makes it difficult to get motivated to make positive changes." (University of Memphis, Module 4, 2019). Think about real life situations when you are constantly scrutinized for your weaknesses. You begin to have self-doubt or a mindset of you can't accomplish anything. When educators only focus on the deficits or weaknesses, we are sharing with our students the mindset of only improving our weaknesses.
As an educator, many times we hear about how we need to do this better or that, but do we hear any about the amazing things happening in our classroom? As a person in general, I respond much better and become more open minded when I hear about the strengths of my teaching and then how to only improve and enhance my instruction. To change the thinking of the student, our mindset of how we approach learning must change. Our approach needs to focus on their strengths. "By building on strengths students already possess, asset-based teaching seeks to create lifelong learners who are confident in their abilities to master new skills." (ACRL, 2018). By developing a new approach to developing instruction for our students, we allow them to build the confidence in themselves to see that there are wonderful strengths they have which can enhance my instruction for all students. "Strengths-based models embody a student-centered form of education with the primary goal of transforming students into confident, efficacious, lifelong learners whose work is infused with a sense of purpose." (Anderson, 2000).
Goal Setting and Conferencing
Goal setting for students is a way for students to really focus on their learning. The strength of their prerequisites and foundation can help build the way for students to achieve their goals. As students progress through their education, they gain knowledge each step of the way. Goal setting is for students to build on those strengths and progress further to become successful and life long learners. As students goal set, they must think about their actionable steps needed to reach their goal and how they can use their strengths to achieve those goals. As an educator, we can foster that with conferencing in the goal setting process. It is important for students to be given time at the beginning of the year to think about their goals for the school year that are academically driven and also nonacademic goals. The teacher can then conference with the students on their goals and work with them on steps to achieve those goals. Not every goal set should be long term. Students also should set short term goals as guiding points to also work to reach a long term goal. It is important for the teacher to conference with students, but it is equally important for students to be given time to talk with others about their goal. In the VBS video below, the teacher talks about how she allows students to collaborate with each other to make sure their goal is understandable, specific, and attainable.
VBS Schools. July 14, 2017
CBC Kids. March 29, 2018
Student Profile Surveys
Students are important voices to guide your instruction. The students in your classroom are their best advocate because they know their personal strengths and their areas for growth. Providing students with an opportunity at the beginning of the year to fill out a learner profile survey can "allows students to voice their issues, needs, and desires, giving feedback on how a teacher can change his or her instruction to help them perform better in class." (Minero, 2016).
As students fill out the learner profile survey, they are challenged with questions that make them think deeper about themselves and their learning. "The aim of a student profile survey is to help you understand more about the background and characteristics of your students." (Ramburuth & Welch, 2005). After students fill out their learner profile, the teacher can take the information and use it to guide their instruction. Teachers can see which students prefer group work and which prefer to work individually. Teachers can find out more information about their passions to incorporate into the lessons and instruction.
Connecting Prior Knowledge
"Asset-based teaching approaches each student as a whole person, including their culture, home life, prior experiences, and knowledge, with the perspective that all of these areas can be brought into the classroom environment." (Raish, 2019). Students feel more comfortable participating in the class discussions and lessons if they feel confident and valued. As students are able to work on previous learned knowledge, the teacher can use those to help reinforce needed skills for the current lessons.
As students are able to connect their prior knowledge to current lessons, it can empower students to understand how their prior knowledge and strengths can be valued for the current lessons. It allows students to see their prior knowledge as strengths and not as "well I can't do this." Math is very important to build on the prior knowledge as their math foundational skills are continuously built upon to learn new concepts. Therefore it is important to connect their prior knowledge to the new lesson content being taught.
Back to School Parent Survey
Open house is a time where we as teachers get introduced to the new students that will be joining our classroom for the upcoming year. It is such an exciting time, but a limited time to really get a picture of the student we are meeting. Therefore at the beginning of the year, I give the student's parents first day of school homework. Each parent must fill out the beginning of the year survey to help me get a better picture of their student. It allows them to tell me their strengths, academic or nonacademic, and areas they feel the student needs growth.
After the parents/guardians have filled out the survey, I take their responses and really get a deeper picture of their student. I have a notebook with a page for each student and I write down all the information I can about the student on their page. As I learn more about the student over the course of the year, I continuously revisit their page to add new information. At the end of the year, I take their page and give it to them as a present to show all the wonderful things I learned about them throughout the year.
Eagle of the Week Nominations
Each week, one of our students is selected to be Eagle of the Week for our class. The students are to fill out the Eagle of the Week nominations each Thursday morning as their morning work.
Before the nomination process begins, we have class discussions about the qualities of an Eagle of the Week. We discuss how an Eagle is a leader without being the center of attention. An Eagle of the Week is kind, respectful, and shows strengths of being a good citizen of the class and school.
The students have one nominating question they must answer. The student writing the nomination must provide a description of the why they feel this student should be the Eagle of the Week. What strengths does the student posses that are Eagle of the Week qualities? What actions have they shown that are Eagle of the Week qualities? These are the questions the students must think about and answer when nominating their Eagle of the Week.
Star Knowledge Student
Based on diagnostic assessments taken at the beginning of the year and middle of the year, I select a Star Knowledge Student for that topic lesson. Before planning out my units, I look at each students diagnostic results to see what their strengths were in each domain. I take each lesson topic and write down students who could be a Star Knowledge Student for that lesson. For example, we began volume at the very beginning of the year. Volume consists of multiplying the length, width, and height. For this lesson, I had a student that scored below grade level as my star knowledge student. (Their scores to the left).
This student scored below grade level, but showed a strong understanding of factors and multiples. Therefore, when implementing the lesson with my students, I would call on him for help with the multiplication problems. I make sure to include each student as a Star Knowledge Student to make sure each student has a chance to showcase their strengths and help me in the instructional part of the lessons. This really allows the students to feel valued with their strength and showcase their strength to the rest of the class. All students have different strengths that can really enhance the learning taking place in the classroom.
References:
ACRL Instruction Section Research and Scholarship Committee. (2018). 5 Things You Should Read About Asset-Based Teaching. Chicago; Association of College Research Libraries.
Anderson, E. C. (2000, February). Affirming students’ strengths in the critical years. Paper presented at the National Conference on the First Year Experience, Columbia, SC.
Raish, V. (2019, February 1). How asset-based teaching can improve classroom behavior. Classcraft. https://www.classcraft.com/blog/asset-based-teaching/.
Ramburuth, P., & Welch, C. (2005). Educating the global manager. Journal of Teaching in International Business, 16(3), 5-27.
Minero, E. (2016, June 14). Improving Teaching With Expert Feedback—From Students. Edutopia.
Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/practice/student-surveys-using-student-voice-improve-teaching-and-learning#:~:text=A%20student%20survey%20allows%20students,them%20perform%20better%20in%20class.
Schreiner, L. A. (2013). Strengths-based advising. Academic advising approaches: Strategies that teach
students to make the most of college, 105-120.
Teach: Student Goal-Setting and Reflection. Virginia Beach Schools
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiFWPd1PJZc
The University of Memphis. 2018. “Module 4 - Asset Based Community Engagement.” Engaged Scholarship Online Modules. Last modified January 5, 2018. http://www.memphis.edu/ess/module4/index.php.
