Ways to Foster peer-to-peer Relationship Building:
Provide more opportunities to build team work skills- Students love to interact with each other and give feedback on individual work. This year, I plan to create more opportunities for students to build team-work skills and work together. Working with 2nd graders, I believed that they had not developed enough social skills to be productive team members. While this is in some cases true for 2nd graders, I realize that the only way for them to build this skill is by having opportunities to practice! They have to start somewhere! Sparks, 2013 reminds us that getting students to work together to identify and solve problems can reduce tension and bullying among students of different races, social classes, or sexual orientations! I am excited to provide students with more practice being productive team members.
Peer-to-Peer Feedback- Throughout the past few years, I have experienced the power of peer-to-peer feedback! I created a "Glows & Grows" anchor chart which displayed specific sentence starters to help students give each other respectful and focused feedback. This feedback routine is so important because, according to Block, 2017, communities thrive when people have a voice and are given the opportunity to communicate with others! Block further explains that when work is a collaborative endeavor (even if the final product is individual), there are opportunities to connect with and learn from others. The glows and grows anchor chart requires students to think more about assignment requirements or performance indicators. Towards the end of the year, Students are able to participate and fully engage in these glow & grow sessions; giving them a deeper understanding of the learning tasks/goals, and the steps needed to reach that goal!
Ways to build student-teacher relationships
Personalized Hand shakes- After learning about a teacher who had gained national recognition for creating personalized handshakes with each one of his students, I wanted to try this relationship-building technique in my own classroom. Last year, I had 28 students, so creating and learning all the handshakes took a solid two months. I later learned that this was time well-spent! Every morning, students looked forward to doing our "secret handshake" as well as seeing their friends' personalized greetings as well. This immediately set the tone for the day and students were generally excited and ready to begin their work. Block, 2017 confirms that having personalized handshakes is effective by explaining the importance of teachers setting the tone and being the "host" of the classroom. Block explains that even on days when the teacher has had to rush to school after a chaotic morning, students deserve to feel welcomed and valued. Students were amazed at how many handshakes I knew and often asked questions about why I wanted to learn so many. These questions led to rich discussions about the beauty of diversity and how each handshake represents them and their personality. Taking the time to learn a special handshake showed the students that I am there for them, I appreciate their differences, and I value them all.
Provide more opportunities to build team work skills- Students love to interact with each other and give feedback on individual work. This year, I plan to create more opportunities for students to build team-work skills and work together. Working with 2nd graders, I believed that they had not developed enough social skills to be productive team members. While this is in some cases true for 2nd graders, I realize that the only way for them to build this skill is by having opportunities to practice! They have to start somewhere! Sparks, 2013 reminds us that getting students to work together to identify and solve problems can reduce tension and bullying among students of different races, social classes, or sexual orientations! I am excited to provide students with more practice being productive team members.
Peer-to-Peer Feedback- Throughout the past few years, I have experienced the power of peer-to-peer feedback! I created a "Glows & Grows" anchor chart which displayed specific sentence starters to help students give each other respectful and focused feedback. This feedback routine is so important because, according to Block, 2017, communities thrive when people have a voice and are given the opportunity to communicate with others! Block further explains that when work is a collaborative endeavor (even if the final product is individual), there are opportunities to connect with and learn from others. The glows and grows anchor chart requires students to think more about assignment requirements or performance indicators. Towards the end of the year, Students are able to participate and fully engage in these glow & grow sessions; giving them a deeper understanding of the learning tasks/goals, and the steps needed to reach that goal!
Ways to build student-teacher relationships
Personalized Hand shakes- After learning about a teacher who had gained national recognition for creating personalized handshakes with each one of his students, I wanted to try this relationship-building technique in my own classroom. Last year, I had 28 students, so creating and learning all the handshakes took a solid two months. I later learned that this was time well-spent! Every morning, students looked forward to doing our "secret handshake" as well as seeing their friends' personalized greetings as well. This immediately set the tone for the day and students were generally excited and ready to begin their work. Block, 2017 confirms that having personalized handshakes is effective by explaining the importance of teachers setting the tone and being the "host" of the classroom. Block explains that even on days when the teacher has had to rush to school after a chaotic morning, students deserve to feel welcomed and valued. Students were amazed at how many handshakes I knew and often asked questions about why I wanted to learn so many. These questions led to rich discussions about the beauty of diversity and how each handshake represents them and their personality. Taking the time to learn a special handshake showed the students that I am there for them, I appreciate their differences, and I value them all.
