Safe Learning Environment

Students need to know that a classroom is a safe space to be themselves and to learn. Especially during the circumstances of the pandemic, ensuring that students felt safe and comfortable during my classes was of the utmost importance. From the first day of school, I made an effort to make sure that students understood that people of all identities and backgrounds were welcome in the classroom. Students were given a survey asking them about themselves, their families, and their personal identities so that my mentor teacher and I could get to know them better. Included on that survey were questions asking for students' preferred names and pronouns, and whether or not they were comfortable with my mentor teacher and myself using those in front of other students or with their parents. While many students did not understand what a pronoun was and needed an explanation, some of the students took advantage of this to express their identities, even if they were not comfortable with it being shared. After giving the survey, one student even stayed after class to say thank you for including the questions about preferred name and pronouns, as it made her feel that she and her family were more welcome in the classroom. These simple questions, as well as remembering to refer to students the way they wanted me to, helped my students to trust me, and to know that they were accepted.

Additionally, learning requires making mistakes and asking questions, both of which can be intimidating to students just entering middle school with new classmates and teachers. Throughout my lessons, I would frequently ask leading questions. Whenever a student responded, however, I would not give them feedback about the correctness of their answer. Instead, I would ask for an explanation of why they think their answer is correct and give positive feedback about thinking like a scientist. I would then ask for more answers from other students before eventually explaining the correct one. By emphasizing and positively reinforcing critical thinking and giving an answer, rather than rewarding correctness, students were encouraged to continue making guesses and trying to answer questions. On the occasions that a student would become self-critical about an incorrect answer, I would use the situation to explain that everyone, including myself and great scientists, make mistakes all the time, and that we learn from those mistakes. The same was true if a student would ask a question that they felt self-conscious about. No one automatically knows or understand science, they have to learn through trial and error, and asking questions. [1] [11]

A survey was given to students, without me present, halfway through the semester to provide feedback on my teaching. These two pie charts show the results from some of the survey questions about whether or not students felt that my classroom was a safe learning environment. As shown above, the vast majority of students felt that I demonstrated the benefits of mistakes and that I encouraged students to listen to one another. Additionally, as the pie chart below shows, most students felt that I was positive and supportive in the classroom even when students did not understand something. Together, these demonstrate the emphasis that I placed on helping students define learning as a process and not a matter of correctness.