Building Relationships with Children
Our methods courses place an intentional focus on building relationships with children. Understanding more about their students (their lives inside and outside of school, how they participate and see themselves as mathematicians, how they position themselves in whole group and small group settings, etc.) raises important questions and possibilities for how novice teachers think about supporting students' participation, learning, and sense of belonging. An important goal is to provide novice teachers opportunities to grapple with what it means to get to know elementary students as both people and learners, to recognize students' varied strengths and resources, and to begin to draw from these as they engage in cycles of planning, rehearsing, enacting, and analyzing teaching.
Crafting spaces for novices to get to know students
Our courses are structured to allow novice teachers to work with the same small group of children over an extended period of time. By interacting both formally (during lessons) and informally (chatting while walking back to class after recess; playing games together) novice teachers are provided opportunities to learn about who their students are both in and outside of school. As teacher educators, we find ourselves continually pushing NTs to draw upon what they learn about their buddies to shape their planning and enacting of lessons with their small group of students. We support NTs to connect to children's interests, friends, families as they design their enactments and interact with children, and leverage children's ways of participating in and out of classroom spaces.
Read more about how we structure our methods courses to support getting to know buddies in an on-going manner.
Teacher Educator Reflections
TE1: [After their enactments], their debriefing was lovely. Like that sheet [of reflection questions] for me really worked. They really worked together on -- okay, what do we know about each of these students? What do we know about them, kind of, as people? What do we know about them as mathematicians? They actually used that part when they started planning [their next IA]..
TE2: The stuff that they're putting right now on my forms are pretty general... can they get more specific? Like as they work with, I mean, they've had two meetings with these kids, right? Maybe their reflections aren't as nuanced because they don't have enough information to be able to say more nuanced things, but maybe by the end of the quarter they will, I don't know.
In subsequent conversations, TEs continued to reflect upon the challenge of supporting NTs to get past superficial ways of knowing students.
Novice Teacher Reflections
“I also learned about Edwin that even though he moves around a lot and it may look like he is not paying attention (when he's looking another way), he is a very good listener. He knows exactly what is going on and contributes even though it may look like he is not engaged.”
-Emiliano (TEP 2018-2019)
“I came into TEP knowing and firmly believing that building relationships was a crucial part of teaching -- because I need to know my students as people and as scholars in order to meet their needs. Now, I’m thinking of how important it also is for my students to get to know me and for me to allow myself to be vulnerable. For this, I need to be willing to share relevant aspects of my personal life and to be okay with acknowledging when I do not know something or when I have made a mistake. I now realize that as equal members of the class community, I need to change my idea of power dynamics.”
-Alondra (TEP 2018-2020)
“I know I learned much more from them than they could have possibly learned from me.”
-Erin (TEP 2018-2020)