Educators value and care for all students and act in their best interests.
In my final practicum I found that I had to work a lot harder to connect with students to build relationships than in the past. I believe that this was because of the social dynamics that were a reality in my students’ lives combined with their age. In many cases I found that the older students were, the longer it took to build a strong relationship. I made it my goal to find out one thing I could use to connect with each student on a personal level. I spent many lunch breaks in the classroom making my presence in their lives more than just their teacher. I wanted my students to know I was someone who cared about their students and wanted to get to know them on a personal level. I found myself happily surprised in EDUC-491 (my final practicum) because not only did I feel that I made a difference in many of their lives, but they had also impacted me. I did my best to stay humble and thank my students as well as admit when I had made mistakes. This helped my students to trust me and build a lasting relationship that students could rely on when they needed.
Attached below is several pictures of a sock collection from one of my students. I noticed that this student came to school with a different pair of fancy socks every single day. I used this detail to build a relationship and we took a picture every day of their socks and posted a picture of them to twitter. I recieved a letter from this student later on in my practicum explaining that this made this student feel special and valued.
When I started my first practicum, my coaching teacher and I decided to use fort day as an incentive for good behavior in the classroom. We gave the class 20 points of behavior and if they kept their points up past 1 we would hold to our promise and hold a ‘fort day’. Students were so enthusiastic about this that they held eachother accountable for behavior as well as staying aware of their self-behavior. When we got to the date agreed for fort day students were informed they could bring 1-2 blankets from home to construct forts and 1 flashlight to read underneath the fort. While the students were out for recess time, myself and my coaching teacher set up the classroom to have forts for silent reading. Students returned from recess time to the transformed classroom.
