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SEL for Students: Social Awareness and Relationship Skills

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SEL for Students: Social Awareness and Relationship Skills

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According to the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional, Learning ( CASEL), social-emotional learning (SEL) is "the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions."

Social awareness and relationship skills are two of the five components that make up CASEL's model of SEL.

Social awareness involves the ability to understand and empathize with others, particularly with people from different backgrounds than one's own.

A history teacher cultivates students' empathy by encouraging them to "put themselves in the shoes" of people on opposing sides of history to help them understand both how they came to their views in the first place and why certain decisions were made.

Skills that develop social awareness include:

Identifying social cues (verbal, physical) to determine how others feel

Taking others' perspectives

Demonstrating empathy and compassion

Showing concern for the feelings of others

Understanding and expressing gratitude

Recognizing strengths in others

Identifying diverse social norms, including unjust ones

Recognizing situational demands and opportunities

Caring about and being motivated to contribute to the well-being of one's family, friends, school, community, the environment, and the greater good

"Relationship skills" is the ability to build positive relationships, especially with diverse individuals and groups, using a variety of methods such as active listening, and communication and conflict resolution skills. These skills also include the ability to resist pressure and to seek out and offer help.

To encourage teamwork in lab groups at the beginning of the year, a chemistry teacher has students practice positive communication skills such as listening, conflict resolution, and cooperation.

Relationship skills include:

Initiating contact with others and cultivating friendship

Sharing one's thoughts and feelings (appropriately)

Communicating effectively

Developing positive relationships

Demonstrating cultural humility

Practicing teamwork and collaborative problem-solving

Resolving conflicts constructively

Approaching relationships with positive presuppositions

Resisting negative social pressure

Resisting stereotypes

Standing up for the rights of others

Showing leadership in groups

Seeking or offering support and help when needed

Ultimately, social awareness and relationship skills are closely linked. For example, when students attempt to resolve a conflict between themselves (relationship skills), the process is made easier when both are able to empathize with each other (social awareness).

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SEL for Students: Social Awareness and Relationship Skills | Greater Good In Education

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According to the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional, Learning ( CASEL), social-emotional learning (SEL) is "the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions."

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Social Emotional Learning:  Relationship Skills

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Social Emotional Learning:  Relationship Skills

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Build Relationships With Teens All Year Long

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Build Relationships With Teens All Year Long

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Build Relationships With Teens All Year Long

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Middle and high school students need ways to share their identities,

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TED Talks Education: "Build Relationships with Your Students." | PBS LearningMedia

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"We're educators. We're born to make a difference," says Rita Pierson, who has spent 40 very dedicated years as an educator. The difference she refers to is not only helping students learn, but being a positive force in their lives.

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13 fail-safe icebreakers to use in class today - 

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13 fail-safe icebreakers to use in class today - 

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At the start of a new semester, teachers around the world turn their attention to the very first class. With a new group of students to integrate and make comfortable, icebreakers are an activity that are essential to those first days. But what makes a good activity? Ideally, teachers need icebreakers that are low in social risk, matched to your class's proficiency level, and perhaps just a bit silly. A good activity will encourage bonding, participation, motivation, and allow students to relax both mentally and physically. Of course, it's an added bonus if they can be easily adapted as warm ups or speaking activities during the year. Here are 13 adaptable icebreakers that we love...

Moving activities

1. Blobs and lines

This activity is easy, quick, keeps students moving and talking, plus helps them discover what they have in common. The idea is for students to listen to their teacher's prompts and organize themselves in a line (for example, in alphabetical order of last name) or in blobs according to something they have in common (birth month).

Try these prompts:

Line up in chronological order of your birthdays

Line up in order of how many siblings you have

Find those who are allergic to the same things as you

Gather with those who have the same colored clothing as you

Line up in alphabetical order of your fathers' names

Gather in four blobs: those who traveled by car to class, those who traveled by bus, and those who traveled another way

2. This or that

Along the same lines, in this activity students move to a particular side of the room to represent their opinions on a certain topic. To make this icebreaker work, "yes/no", "true/false", or "would you rather X or Y" questions are best. (A quick Google search will reveal dozens of sites with icebreaker questions to use or adapt.) Examples are:

True or false (teacher indicates the sides of the room that correspond to each answer): I had breakfast this morning.

Would you rather be invisible for a day or be able to fly for a day?

Yes or no: Do you speak more than three languages?

Tip: If you want to have questions with multiple answers you can assign each to a specific corner of the room.
3. Signatures

Ask the students to invent a "signature" movement or sound. It can be extremely simple: a clap, cough, turn in a circle, bow, word, mime, or gesture. Show yours first and go around the class (the students' signatures shouldn't repeat). Then it's time to remember them, beginning with yours and going around the circle again.

Mingles

4. Classmate bingo

An oldie but a goodie. Create bingo cards with prompts for students to use to ask each other questions. The idea is to cross off all the squares. Use simple prompts like those below, or try more complicated ones for higher level classes:

5. Who's in your circle?

Ask your students to draw three cocentric circles on a piece of paper. Give them a topic (food, seasons, sports...) and ask them to write it in the center circle. In the second circle students write "love", in the third "like", and outside the circles "don't like". Under the topic, students individually choose a specific example to focus on (e.g., bananas, spring, tennis). Students then mingle and ask their classmates how they feel about the item they have chosen, writing the students' names in the circles that correspond to their opinions. Repeat with another topic.

Small group speaking activities

6. Toilet paper roll

Produce a roll of toilet paper and ask students to take as many sheets as they like, without telling them why. Once the class has their sheets, reveal that each sheet corresponds to a question their small group will ask them. You can also do this with pieces of candy.

7. Two truths and a lie

Students write down three sentences with information about themselves, however, one must be a lie. Other students then ask them follow-up questions to discover which statement was a lie.

_Tip: This is a great way for teachers to give information about themselves on the first day of class. Ask students to think of follow-up questions in pairs.
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8. Three things in common

Small groups must identify three things that they have in common with each other - the stranger, the better. Put prompts on the board if you would like, then give students time to talk. Later, students report back and vote on which group has the strangest three things in common.

Open class speaking activities

9. Time bomb name game

This is a fun, quick activity for students to remember each other's name. Ask your class to form a circle and say their name. Then, throw a tennis ball to one of your students. They have two seconds to say some one else's name and throw the ball to them, before it "explodes" and they are out of the game. Continue until only one student remains.

10. Beach ball toss

Before class, write icebreaker questions over a beach ball in permanent marker. Standing in a circle, students throw the ball to each other. When caught, or when the teacher says "stop", the student with the ball must answer the question closest to their left thumb. Repeat until each student has answered at least one question.

11. Candy pass

Give each student a small handful of colored candy (such as Skittles). Tell the class that a question has been assigned to each candy color. Write these on the board, considering having a mix of serious and more humorous questions such as:

Blue: Would you rather be a tiny horse or an enormous chicken? Why?

Red: What is your ideal job and why?

Green: Tell the class about your house and who lives in it.

Yellow: What are three countries you would like to visit and why?

Students are then told to eat all their candy - except for one piece. In this way they can choose the question they will answer.

12. Sit down if...

With the class in a circle the teacher asks a series of quirky yes/no questions. Students sit down if they can answer "yes" and the last student standing is the winner.

13. Speed dating

This activity allows students to talk to a maximum number of classmates in a short time. To begin, have your class form two concentric circles facing each other. Ask an icebreaker question and tell them they have a minute to discuss it. After one minute, the outer circle rotates counter-clockwise one position - and the activity is repeated with another student and another question. Continue until students have returned to their original partners.

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13 fail-safe icebreakers to use in class today ‹ EF Teacher Zone

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At the start of a new semester, teachers around the world turn their attention to the very first class. With a new group of students to integrate and make comfortable, icebreakers are an activity that are essential to those first days. But what makes a good activity?

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12 Strategies To Build Relationships With Students

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12 Strategies To Build Relationships With Students

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Student engagement is one of the most fundamental requirements of learning. Without an engaged mind, everything else-no matter the quality of the pedagogy or the cleverness of the technology-is futile.

And one of the useful ways to make improvements here is by having a strong relationship with your students. A well-organized classroom with engaged students who trust and feel valued by the teacher is a classroom that's set up for progress everywhere else.

So how can you build better relationships with students? Here are 12 ways that might help.

See also 10 Of Our Most Popular Articles About Student Engagement

How Can You Build Better Relationships With Students?

1. Know their story

If you don't know 'who' they are and 'where' they come from, any relationship is entirely academic.

2. Talk to students (in class and outside of class)

How do you learn their story? Unless they have a biography you can read, talking to them-and really listening-is the best way.

3. Explicitly value the child over the content

Of course, any strong teacher already does this. But to do so explicitly is to make sure the student knows this to be true.

4. Play games

Team-building games for critical thinking, for example. Games are fun and having fun together released dopamine improves learning outcomes. Games aren't anywhere close to the only source of dopamine-or even the best. But the bonding and 'socialization' that occurs is a kind of foundation for relationship-building with students.

5. Set them up for success

Creating activities or lessons that let every child shine would be great but, of course, isn't always sustainable/practical. What is accessible, however, is to intentionally create these kinds of opportunities throughout the year. Some students love to draw while others are social butterflies. Some love to speak publically while others thrive working behind the scenes on critical projects.

Students don't always have to be in these preferred 'sweet spots,' but they should have ongoing opportunities to show their talents and genius.

6. Assume the best in every student

If you do so, it will change the way you perceive certain events-behaviors, the quality of work in certain assignments, questions, etc. Sometimes you'll be 'wrong' by 'assuming the best' in what a student meant or hoped to do and create, but by starting from this point, you give students a chance to 'fail forward' and learn through their mistakes and learn to self-manage.

7. Interview the student

Not like a job but not merely an informal conversation, either. Have a set of questions you create beforehand to get a fuller picture of who they are and what they need from you.

8. Let students interview you

And let them do the same to you. If nothing else, what they choose to ask will help you understand them better.

9. Have a short memory

In large part, being a child is about learning what works is what doesn't. This requires mistakes. Lots of them. Provide clear and effective learning feedback when they fail or fall short, then move on.

10. Attend their extracurricular events

This is part of seeing them as people and not students. It will also have the effect of them seeing you differently, as well.

11. Perform (positive) home visits

Home visits can be an effective way of 'knowing their story.' Obviously, these need to be done as part of a concerted effort with your school or district. You can read more about home visits here.

12. Call home and celebrate successes early in the year

First impressions are so extraordinary because, in these early moments, the brain 'learns' someone or thing and then continues to look for data that reinforces that story. Daniel Kahneman's ' Thinking Fast and Slow ' provides a compelling look at this and other tendencies of the human mind (affiliate link).
12 Strategies To Connect With Students In And Out Of The Classroom

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12 Strategies To Build Relationships With Students

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Student engagement is one of the most fundamental requirements of learning. Without an engaged mind, everything else is futile.

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Relationship Building: Getting to Know your Students

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Relationship Building: Getting to Know your Students

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Relationship Building: Getting To Know Your Students

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Building Positive Relationships with students:  What Brain Science says

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Building Positive Relationships with students:  What Brain Science says

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Students' brains are hard at work every moment of the day, learning skills and connecting new information with old. Those same brains are also constantly processing information when it comes to their relationship with you, their teacher.

Positive student relationships are fundamental to success. When students feel supported, they're more likely to engage in learning and have better academic outcomes. Plus, when students have positive interactions with teachers, they have fewer behavioral problems. These relationships are more important - and more challenging - than ever in uncertain times, like during the coronavirus pandemic.

Neuroscience can help us understand what's happening in students' brains when they feel safe and understood. Here are four reasons why positive teacher-student relationships are important - and how you can build those relationships.

1. Positive relationships build motivation.

This creates a cycle. You provide positive feedback. The student's brain releases dopamine. The student feels good and is motivated to feel that way again. With this increased motivation, students spend more time and attention working on a skill. They build those skills. You give more praise - sparking the release of more dopamine. And the cycle starts all over again.

On the flip side, when students don't receive positive feedback, they're less likely to enter the positive cycle of motivation and learning.

How to do it: To build a positive relationship, you need to have more positive interactions than negative ones. More specifically, researchers recommend having five positive interactions for every one negative interaction. Positive interactions could include greeting students by name as they arrive, giving praise for working hard, or asking about a student's pet.

Students who learn and think differently often have more negative interactions than positive ones. For example, students with ADHD may receive constant reminders from teachers to be on time and stay on task.

This doesn't mean that you should never provide students with corrective feedback and reminders. But make sure the positive interactions outweigh the negative ones. The more you get to know your students, the more you'll recognize when they need praise or encouragement, and when they're open to constructive feedback. You can keep a tally of how many reminders you give a student to complete an assignment. Try to find five times as many positive things to comment on and tally up as well.

2. Positive relationships create safe spaces for learning.

Think about how this applies to your own life. If you have a supportive principal who has established psychological safety in your school, you might be more likely to challenge yourself and try new ideas in your classroom. But if school leaders consistently give critical feedback, you might not feel psychologically safe enough to try something new. It's the same for students.

Building psychological safety is harder with some students than others. Think of the last time you saw a student seeming to overreact. This behavior may result from trauma or chronic stress in the student's life (such as having a learning or thinking difference or growing up as part of a marginalized group). This can cause them to feel threatened in situations that other students find harmless. The brain learns that the environment is not safe and remains on alert to potential danger.

For these students, when something is perceived as a threat, a region of the brain called the amygdala sets off an alarm. The amygdala is known for its role in detecting threats in the environment. Its job is to keep us safe and alive. Think of an animal that must decide whether to run or freeze when it sees a predator.

The amygdala triggers the release of cortisol (also called the stress hormone) and epinephrine (also called adrenaline). This sends extra energy throughout the body. The muscles tense up and the heartbeat quickens, preparing for fight or flight. When the threat detection system in the brain is highly activated, learning cannot happen. This is the opposite of psychological safety.

In students, this might look like:

Avoiding assignments

Putting their head down

Yelling or making negative comments

Walking out of the classroom or leaving a live video lesson

Acting out physically or aggressively

While building psychological safety may be even more difficult with these students, it is especially important for them. That's because oxytocin also helps keep the amygdala's threat detection system quiet. Over time, when students are surrounded by people they trust, their threat detection system is less likely to activate, and they're better able to learn.

For students who are at risk for a fight-or-flight reaction, your approach will need to differ slightly. Use strategies like when-then sentences so they can know exactly what positive outcome to expect when they complete a task, while giving students the power of choice. Expect that they may overreact sometimes, and provide the space and time needed to calm down. By remaining calm, you're not only reminding yourself to react to their behavior as a form of communication and respond appropriately. You're also building psychological safety and trust.

3. Positive relationships build new pathways for learning.

As you teach the new information, new neural pathways connect the old information with the new. If students don't understand the context or aren't able to link the new information to anything they currently know, they'll have a hard time understanding the lesson.

Ask students to share what they know about a topic. Every student has a different set of background knowledge. For example, if you know a student is a talented artist, you can leverage their knowledge of different kinds of paintbrushes to explain friction. Or you can make an analogy about the relationship between the characters in a student's favorite book and the domestic strife in the Civil War.

4. Positive relationships improve student behavior.

Neuroscience research has started to uncover why this imitation happens - and how it can be used to encourage positive behaviors. Studies have shown that when people observe an action being performed, it activates some of the same neural pathways that would be active if they actually performed the action. This is called the mirror-neuron system.

Essentially, our brains are practicing the action that we're seeing, even though our bodies don't move. Studies show that when people see an action first, they are able to perform the action more quickly than if they had not seen the action.

How to do it: Start by thinking through what behaviors and social skills you're modeling for your students. For example, you likely already model social skills like turn-taking, cooperation, and empathy on a daily basis. You can take it a step further and explain the behaviors you're modeling. The next time you're feeling frustrated, tell your students how you're feeling. Talk about how you deal with frustration, such as taking a few deep breaths.

For younger students, use pre-correcting and prompting as a classroom management strategy. It allows you to explicitly tell, show, and remind students how to approach tasks or situations.

Young children are even more likely than adults to imitate the behaviors they see. That's because they're still learning social skills and appropriate behavior. Plus, the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain that allows us to choose where to direct our attention and to regulate our behaviors and emotions) isn't fully developed until we're in our 20s. Childhood is a prime time to model behavior and social skills for students.

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Building positive relationships with students: What brain science says

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Brain science tells us why positive student relationships can lead to their success.

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Positive and Caring Relationships with Teachers are Critical to Student Success

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Positive and Caring Relationships with Teachers are Critical to Student Success

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Check out our collection of resources for building teacher-student relationships to find instructional practices, research, useful websites and other information to help support you in this area.
When teachers make an intentional effort to get to know each of their students, it can foster in students a sense of belonging and connection to school-which can then build a foundation for academic success.

Positive teacher-student relationships lead to increased cooperation and engagement in the classroom. They also contribute to a welcoming, inclusive school climate that promotes equity, social and emotional learning and improved student outcomes.

But how can teachers reach all their students-including students from cultural backgrounds different from their own? Here are a few strategies based on research and my experiences working with educators in Oregon and across the country:

Know your own perspectives. Think deeply about your own attitudes and beliefs and how they may impact your opinions and actions. Our cultural background influences how we interpret situations and communicate, as well as the choices we make. An important element of culturally responsive communication is understanding how your views affect the way you interpret what students say and do.

Build relationships with each student. Positive learning environments and engaging instruction help all students achieve success. Caring and emotionally supportive classrooms are particularly important for students who have had challenging life and/or school experiences.

Caring teachers ...
✔ Show interest in students' welfare
✔ Respect students' perspectives
✔ Tell students they can succeed
✔ Know students' academic and social needs
✔ Recognize students' academic and social achievements

Use and model perspective-taking and empathy. The way students interpret their interactions with their teacher can have a lasting impact. Perspective-taking (putting yourself in a student's shoes) can help you recognize each student's strengths. In addition, it will lead to a deeper understanding of the daily challenges they experience.
Watch this video from Race Forward to hear students describe their experiences with implicit bias.
Perspective-taking also involves learning about students' beliefs, attitudes and dreams; how they react in different situations; and their communication style. Educators who seek to understand their students' perspectives are more likely to avoid misunderstandings that harm relationships.

Here are a few key things to remember when practicing perspective-taking:

Show genuine interest in your students and let them know that getting to know each of them as an individual is important.

Ask students about their opinions, interests and background.

Listen to what students say as if you might be wrong.

Be intentional in your efforts to learn how students view different situations.

Use nonjudgmental, solution-focused problem-solving.

You can also check out my REL Northwest blog post, as well as this video and infographic, for more information on perspective-taking.

Set a high bar for each student. Cultivating caring relationships is important, but educators also need to have high expectations for all students. We must also convince students that they can learn and succeed. According to Yeager and Walton, "small" social-psychological interventions that focus on changing students' thoughts, feelings, and beliefs in and about school can lead to large gains in student achievement for each and every student.
For more information, check out "Three Ways to Improve Teacher-Student Relationships and Reduce Discipline Disparities" and "Student Perspectives on the Support They Receive at School."

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Positive and Caring Relationships with Teachers are Critical to Student Success

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Check out our collection of resources for building teacher-student relationships to find instructional practices, research, useful websites and other information to help support you in this area. When teachers make an intentional effort to get to know each of their students, it can foster in students a sense of belonging and connection to school-which can then build a foundation for academic success.

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The Importance of Strong Relationships-A strategy to Solve unfinished learning

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The Importance of Strong Relationships-A strategy to Solve unfinished learning

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A Strategy to Solve Unfinished Learning

Anxiety, stress, and in some cases, trauma are prevalent as we live through the COVID-19 pandemic. Students are facing food and housing insecurities, isolation caused by school and business closures, uncertainty due to parents losing jobs, and the fear of catching the coronavirus or grief of losing family members to it. Educators are facing their own personal stresses, in addition to being concerned about teaching academic content and about the well-being of their students, which can ultimately wear on their well-being.

But even with all of these stressors, teachers and students are trying to remain connected to schools and each other. Strong relationships with teachers and school staff can dramatically enhance students' level of motivation and therefore promote learning. Students who have access to more strong relationships are more academically engaged, have stronger social skills, and experience more positive behavior. Unfortunately, too many students do not have this experience. A survey of 25,400 sixth to 12th graders in a large diverse district, found that less than a third of middle schoolers had a strong relationship with their teachers, and that number dropped to 16% by the time students reached 12th grade. Students from low-income backgrounds report even fewer strong relationships with their teachers.

When schools closed their doors in March 2020, these connections went away for many. But building trusting relationships will be critical to addressing the months of stress and missed classroom instruction, or unfinished learning, that has followed. Estimates show that as many as 3 million students are offline, hard to find, or have left school altogether as a result of school closures. In some places, data shows as many as 1 in 5 students did not participate in virtual learning in the spring. Building and maintaining strong "developmental relationships" that reconnect students with adults in school buildings will matter more now and in coming months than in previous school years. Without these trusting relationships and connections, educators cannot catch students up.

Strong relationships between adults and students must include: expressing care, challenging growth, providing support, sharing power, and expanding possibilities (see related chart for explanations). Importantly, these relationship-building actions must be done with an equity lens, one that supports positive racial, cultural, and ethnic identity development. The country's attempt to reckon with 400 years of anti-blackness in response to recent acts of racial violence and injustice is highlighting the long-standing systemic inequities affecting students of color. And the pandemic is exacerbating them.

Creating strong relationships between students and those charged with educating them therefore will require adults to acknowledge the long-standing harms caused by racism in schools. Bias and discrimination, both implicit and explicit, can easily lead to harmful in-school practices that erase students' cultural identities. Relationship building, however, must be done intentionally with the needs of students of color in mind and with a strength-based lens that recognizes and values the rich cultural and linguistic assets they bring to the classroom.

In this brief, we highlight the important practices of fostering strong relationships between students and adults, as well as how to build these relationships in ways that encourage and support students to engage in tasks that move them beyond their current understanding and skills.

What Do We Know About What Works?

District and school leaders considering emphasizing relationships as a strategy to help students catch up and stay connected with school will have to make intentional and important decisions about structuring time for teachers and staff, investing in activities, training on building developmental relationships, and about how to most effectively group students.

As school leaders consider what type of strategy could work best with their staff and students to build strong developmental relationship, they will have to make challenging decisions based on their specific circumstances or contexts. These decisions will come with tradeoffs. In this brief, we draw on research on strengthening student-teacher relationships, school-based mentoring, school-based after-school programming, and school-based case management to provide insight on those tradeoffs. The following chart shows how implementing different elements of building strong developmental relationships impacts the effectiveness of those relationships.

How Effective are Strong Relationships?

We looked at the research to help leaders navigate complicated decisions. The chart below shows how implementing various features of strong relationships impact effectiveness.

Critical Questions for Leaders

Who benefits most from strong relationships?

Students from all backgrounds and ages benefit from strong relationships.

Below are critical questions to ask, based on available research, as schools and districts are building plans to completed unfinished learning.

Why are strong relationships important?

Strong relationships provide a foundation for student engagement, belonging, and, ultimately, learning. The more high-quality relationships students have with their teachers, the better their engagement in school.

How can schools strengthen relationships among students and staff?

The most important thing schools can do to foster these relationships is to have a culture that explicitly values adults nurturing relationships with students and providing teachers and school staff with the time, space, and occasions to interact repeatedly with individual students, especially those that seem less engaged.

Which adult relationships are most impactful?

All in-school adults should strive for strong relationships with students. When students have strong relationships with their teachers, in-class motivation increases the most. In these instances, students are motivated by teachers' high expectations as well as their own.

How should schools group students to foster relationships between adults and students?

Smaller groups are most effective for fostering relationships. One-on-one interactions allow for the greatest opportunity for individualized attention and support, but some adults and students benefit from a larger group setting.

What tasks will foster strong relationships in individual or group settings?

Activities are most effective when they are based on students' interests or goals.

What training do adults need to build strong relationships?

Schools should provide all the adults in the school building with training on the elements of developmental relationships, time, and strategies to build developmental relationships. Schools should also provide individual feedback based on observations of adult interactions with students. This training will ensure that relationships are stronger and more effective in accelerating academic learning.
students of color.

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The Importance of Strong Relationships - A Strategy to Solve Unfinished Learning

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Strong relationships with teachers and school staff can dramatically enhance students' level of motivation and therefore promote learning. Students who have access to more strong relationships are more academically engaged, have stronger social skills, and experience more positive behavior.

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Children learn best when they feel connected to their teachers. Rita Pierson, an educator, says in her

"Kids don't learn from people they don't like."

When kids feel that their teacher cares for them and wants them to succeed, they work harder, pay better attention, and persist through challenges. If the opposite occurs, students shut down, are unwilling to try, give up easily, and do only the bare minimum.

When kids talk about teachers that they love it usually revolves around one thing: connection. As I watch my own kids go through school I've noticed that the teachers they adore connect with them. Adversely, the ones they can't wait to leave, don't. My oldest daughter, in particular, had two teachers who were very similar. Both had high standards and were very strict. They both required a lot out of their students. When she left the class of the first teacher, she cried. With the second teacher, she celebrated. So what was the difference? In her mind, she perceived that the first teacher liked her and the second did not. It all boiled down to their connection.

From the first day to the last, try a variety of approaches and try to connect with each and every student.

Hit the Ground Running

Start Out Right: Don't jump right into content delivery the first few days of school. During those first few weeks, focus on developing a rapport with students, establishing routines and procedures, and creating a classroom community. You may be thinking, "But, I have so much curriculum to get through and only a small window of time to do it!" While true, but time invested upfront into community building and getting to know your students will result in greater gains in the long run.

Get to Know Each Other: Spend some time getting to know your students and also helping them to get to know you. It is important for your students to see you as a normal person (though they still might freak out if they see you at the grocery store). Share your interests, your family, your likes and dislikes with your students.

Highlight Students: For older or more advanced students, have them make a PowerPoint about themselves (start by showing one about you!). For younger students, ask them to bring three items or three pictures that tell about themselves and present them to the class. Highlight a few students each day until you've heard from them all. Better yet, use these photos for your Circles® Graph and explore each student's world of Circles®.

Show and Tell: This is a classic in the world of education, and for good reason. It can be adapted for different subject matter and content, but having kids bring something of their choosing from home gives you great insight into their lives.

Try Different Methods Throughout the Year

Journaling: Give students the opportunity to journal and to share it with you. Sadly, as a teacher, you're pulled in so many different directions that one-on-one conversations with students are rare. Journaling helps bridge that gap. Students can write about themselves and what is going on in their lives and you can write back. Keep in mind that this is not a grammar or spelling exercise, so resist the temptation to correct them. This is a chance for kids to share with you. Many kids will feel safe opening up through writing when they might not in any other way.

Class Meetings: At the beginning of school, incorporate class games and discussions about what kids want to learn. Ask them to tell you what they like and don't like about school. Establish procedures for how these meetings will run. For example, have a ball or stuffed animal that kids hold when it is their turn to talk, and give everyone a chance to share. Then as the year progresses you can hold these meetings to discuss important topics, check in with students and solve classroom problems.

Get Your Students' Input: What do they want to learn this year? What do they like or hate about school? What do they wish would be different about this year vs last year? Are there any social or work-related skills they want to learn?

Of course, some things you can't change (like the lunch menu) but just letting them feel heard is a great chance for connection.

Persist with Hard-to-like Children: Although you may feel that you are expected to be superhuman, teachers are all still human. Part of human nature is that you will easily click with some students, but with others, it may take some time. In every class, you will have at least one child that is more difficult for you to like. Don't feel guilty, again this is a sign of your humanity! However, don't give up. Keep trying to connect with that student. Some students could be struggling with anxiety or have faced trauma and your support could help them quite a bit.

Establishing Connections is Worth the Extra Effort

Connecting with our students is an absolutely vital part of the work we do as teachers. Most of us went into education hoping to change the lives of our students for good, and a connection is the way we do that. Slow down and focus on connecting with your students as this new school year starts to set your classroom up for success.
By: Amy Curletto Amy has been teaching for 12 years in grades K-2. She has a bachelor's degree in Early Childhood and Elementary Education and also has endorsements in reading and ESL. Besides education, her other passion is writing and she has always dreamed of being a writer. She lives in Utah with her husband, her 3 daughters, and her miniature schnauzer. She enjoys reading, knitting, and camping.

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8 Steps to Establishing Positive Connections With Your Students

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Children learn best when they feel connected to their teachers. Rita Pierson, an educator, says in her "Kids don't learn from people they don't like." When kids feel that their teacher cares for them and wants them to succeed, they work harder, pay better attention, and persist through challenges.

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3 Ways to Make Meaningful Connections With Your Students

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3 Ways to Make Meaningful Connections With Your Students

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3 Ways to Make Meaningful Connections With Your Students

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Edutopia blogger Nick Provenzano believes there’s more to teaching than dispensing curriculum, and he shares three practices that lead students and their families to trust him on a personal level.

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A teacher shares her best practices for establishing strong relationships with her class at the start of the school year.

One day, Alyssa, an eighth-grade student, came to our middle school wearing a purple bandanna as a headband, even though she knew that our school's dress code does not allow bandannas. While it seemed like a simple issue to reconcile, I soon found another teacher knocking on my door that morning, asking me to tell Alyssa to take the bandanna off. He said he didn't feel comfortable handling the situation but knew I could persuade Alyssa to follow the rules because she trusted me.

That day, I took Alyssa aside, and we had a private conversation about why bandannas were not allowed at school. I assured her that I understood why she wanted to wear a headband, and I even offered her the option of wearing a different one. After our conversation, Alyssa calmly went to the bathroom and returned to class without the bandanna on her head.

This seemingly small encounter reminded me of the power of positive relationships in schools and why teachers must be intentional about building them. In the classroom, positive relationships are the foundation for learning success. Yet as teachers, we sometimes neglect to take the time to learn about our students as people, which can create barriers to learning and make even small interactions (or conflicts) challenging to handle.

Alyssa wasn't a perfect student, and math didn't come easy for her, but she worked hard in my class. She asked questions. She even came in before and after class for additional help or just to talk about her social life. She trusted me because I worked hard to build a relationship with her by showing that I respected her and cared for her well-being.

Many teachers feel pressure to cover content and to tackle many other job-related duties. However, I have found that investing time early and often to learn about students-by making small changes in our classroom-creates an environment where they are motivated to be successful. Here are six strategies I use to build better relationships with my students.

1. Learn names quickly and correctly. Too often, students, especially those who are marginalized, feel invisible in our schools. Value student diversity and identity by learning names quickly and pronouncing them correctly. Only use nicknames if students prefer them; never create a nickname for a student, because this strips him or her of the identity that is embedded in a name. Every year on the first day of school, I have my students create name tents and pronounce their names correctly for me. I practice pronouncing their names often. I take up the name tents and pass them out each class period until I have learned all of the students' names. I greet each of my students at the door by name before class.

2. Students are never too old for show-and-tell. Help students feel they're more than just another student by allowing them to bring in something that represents them, their culture, or some activity that they enjoy doing at the beginning of the year. Plan five to 10 minutes each day for a few students to share what they brought until you have given everyone in the class the opportunity. In my classes, students have brought in baby pictures of themselves, goggles that they use for their competitive swim team, and souvenirs from a family vacation. Once, my student Hannah brought her ukulele and sang the class a song. She turned show-and-tell into a party, and my students loved every minute of it.

3. Post student pictures and student work. Elementary teachers are very good at sharing student work, but middle and high school teachers often neglect this important practice, feeling that it's unnecessary for older students. I've found older students still need to be reminded that you value their work. When my students participate in the show-and-tell, for example, I snap a picture of them. Those pictures are then printed and posted on a bulletin board in class that stays up all year long. The students love seeing how they have changed over the course of the year because they realize that their growth and development is not only physical, but intellectual and emotional as well. In addition, students are so proud when their exemplary work, such as individual math projects and group work on math tasks, is displayed and celebrated.
©Theresa Montgomery
4. Assign seats, and change them often. We all know that middle school students don't always get along, but when students have opportunities to work together, they learn about each other and discover ways to work together even though they're different. I have my students sit at tables in my middle school math classroom. I assign them to tables of three or four students each; then they change seats once per week using an online random seat changer that is embedded in our attendance management system. After each change, the students answer a quick question, such as, "Who would you love to have dinner with and why?" to get to know the people at their table before spending a week collaborating with them on mathematical tasks.

5. Find small ways to connect. In my first-period class, we often have circle time on Monday mornings or after a break. We stand in a circle and pass a ball around. The person with the ball shares a compliment about another person in the circle, what they did over the weekend or the break, or how they are feeling in the moment and why. Once a student participated in goat yoga for a friend's birthday over the weekend. We were all intrigued by her pictures of goats walking on their backs during yoga class! If I forget circle time on Mondays, my students always remind me. They also always insist that I share too. Though it can seem like every minute is needed to get through the academic content, I've learned that a five-minute investment once a week to learn about each other is invaluable to my students and builds a better culture in my classroom.

6. Simply listen. As teachers, we often feel like we need to keep a professional distance from our students, but I've found that taking time to make small talk can help break down barriers to learning. Because I've made myself approachable, some of my students will tell me stories about their lives during the five minutes between classes. I stop what I am doing, look them in the eyes, and listen. I love seeing their eyes light up as they tell me these stories, and these encounters always leave me a little more knowledgeable about who they are as people.

All students deserve to have adults in their schools who care about them enough to be intentional about building positive relationships that give them the space to make mistakes and learn. If we truly expect our students to learn with us, they need to know that we care about them. They also need opportunities to learn about each other, so that they can build a community in which they grow together as learners.

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6 Strategies for Building Better Student Relationships

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A teacher shares her best practices for establishing strong relationships with her class at the start of the school year.

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These five strategies can help ensure that students feel they belong in your classroom.

©Ikon Images/Trina Dalziel

About a year ago, I received a text in the middle of the teaching day from the mother of a student I had taught eight years earlier as a second grader. She thanked me for always being there for her son, who had come out as gay to their family the night before. She shared that her son-now a senior in high school-mentioned me in their conversation and said I had taught him that all people have equal value in the world, a lesson that helped him face the truth of who he was.

Early elementary teachers rarely see the seeds we try to plant in our young students come to fruition, but we always hope they will grow into the people we imagine they can be. For the last 16 years, I've taught in an inclusion classroom where many students have learning differences that can pose a challenge to connecting with others. I've learned that if students feel anxious socially, they will not be open to taking academic risks, so building a culture of belonging has become my greatest priority. It is important to clarify that when I say "belonging," I am not talking about "fitting in"-students' individuality and uniqueness should always be valued. Belonging in the classroom means ensuring that all students feel welcomed, comfortable, and part of the school family.

Here are five simple ways I've found with which I can convince every student that he or she was meant to be in my classroom:

1. Shine a light on each student. Students often look to their teacher for a cue on how to handle social situations. In learning, we simply call this modeling. When working with students who have learning differences, I've learned it's important to model that every child has something special about him or her that we can celebrate. I had a student who ate alone every day the year before she joined my class. Her behaviors set her apart, and other students naturally started avoiding her. When she became my student, my co-teacher, my aide, and I made an intentional effort to laugh with her and praise her around her classmates. Soon, my students began to see her in a different light, and she never ate alone again. Help your students see each other through your eyes, so they can see each other's greatness.

2. Foster student identity building. Five times per year, I allow my students to do genius hour or passion projects of their choosing. I require only a two-paragraph written or typed piece to ground the work in English language arts. For students, these projects become very personal and a way to share more about who they are with their classmates, while boosting their public speaking skills. I've had students present about their rare medical conditions that they were previously afraid to talk about. Other students have explored their family heritage or activities they participate in, like karate or dance. In every case, students are empowered by their interests and passions, and they regularly say they enjoyed the learning that took place-about themselves and each other.

3. Always leave one desk empty. Every year, I have had at least one new student join us halfway through the school year. Chances are, for any 8-year-old going through a midyear move, it is one of the most difficult times they will ever endure. Seeing an empty desk when they arrive signals that our class has been waiting for them all year-and reminds other students throughout the year that our class could grow and change at any time. I also have my students make and hand out cards for the new student to welcome him or her upon arrival. Teachers have the power to send the message that they've been inconvenienced or the message that they're excited and happy for a new student to join the class.

4. Make sure that each child feels chosen. Several times a year, I ask my students to anonymously write down the names of three students they want to sit with or work with-ranked in order of preference. I go over the results to see who is being selected and who is not. With that knowledge, I seek out students who aren't chosen and create opportunities for them to build relationships with their peers. I may call on one of them and say, "Choose anyone you want to walk this to the office," for example, to help improve their social equity in the eyes of their peers. Other times, I will assign these students specific partners who will help them by modeling good social behaviors.

5. Weave social and emotional practices throughout the day. Toward the end of a school year, I start allowing students to choose their partners for activities, but I change up the traditional classroom social dynamics by letting the students who are typically not chosen to be the choosers. Knowing how this could easily backfire, I remind students of the proper and improper ways to react if the person who chooses them wasn't who they had in mind by stating, "When someone chooses you, they are giving you a gift-the gift is saying, out of all the people in the class, I choose you." This simple exercise takes only about three minutes, but it builds an important social and emotional foundation that teaches students to appreciate each other.

We can never take for granted the importance of our students feeling they belong. In a world that does not yet fully welcome everyone, schools can reinforce existing divisions or provide students a safe community that feels like a second home. That former second-grade student of mine went on to attend the prom with his boyfriend in our very conservative town and initiated a town-wide pride campaign. I have never felt more proud of my impact as a teacher. As educators, we really can help change the world, one child at a time.

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Every Student Matters: Cultivating Belonging in the Classroom

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These five strategies can make a big difference in ensuring that students feel they belong in your classroom.