Safe Learning Environment
2.B.1: Safe Learning Environment
Uses rituals, routines, and appropriate responses that create and maintain a safe physical and intellectual environment where students take academic risks and most behaviors that interfere with learning are prevented.
How I did it:
Having a safe learning environment is pivotal for student comfort and retention of content in class. I pride myself on social awareness of when a situation may feel uncomfortable or negative. I also have the skills to react to these situations from experience through previous jobs as a Peer Learning Assistant at WPI. An important model that I follow in my classroom is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (displayed on the home page of this website). This model states students have physiological and safety needs before they will be able to reach that higher order of learning. Some of these needs include things as basic as Temperature of the room, comfort of seats, and comfortable lighting in the classroom. Although they seem small, being aware of these factors in your room can be an easy way to boost student retention. In terms of the Safety needs, students should feel the classroom is a place they can relax and learn in, not be distracted or anxious. Keeping a close eye on student interactions and pacing the classroom is one of the best ways to keep this safety up. Pacing the room not only allows students to feel physically closer to you, which will result in more questions about the material but also provides the opportunity for the teacher to check up on student interactions.
Here are a few responses I got from the student feedback survey I gave to each of my classes, these questions relate to the CAP element safe learning environment:
Students should not be embarrassed in front of other students, even if they are misbehaving. This emotion takes away from the ability to learn as well as takes a negative emotional toll.
Mistakes are good for learning! Teachers must use their students errors as a way to set them back on the right track. I often found ways to connect the students incomplete answer to another concept they needed to incorporate.