Teacher Response to Student Needs

Rationale to Practice

The Classroom Environment

Environment will support or deter the student’s quest for

affirmation, contribution, power, purpose, and the challenge

in the classroom.

Strategies to Build Positive Environments:

• Study Students’ Cultures  
• Convey Status - Teachers need to commend each student in legitimate ways  
• Make a Room for All Kinds of Learners  
• Help Students Know About One Another - Morning Meetings   
• Celebrate Success 

Communication in the Classroom

Teachers and students need to communicate effectively and efficiently,

that communication improves learning, and that everyone in the class shares

an evolving understanding of why the classroom operates as it does.

Roles of Communication:

• Build a group identity
• Ensure that the teacher has ways of getting to know students better
• Enable the teacher to share his or her thinking about teaching
• Provide a shorthand for quick communication among members of the classroom community
  

   

Guidelines for Classroom Observation

Classroom guidelines are generally best conceived not as arbitrary rules recorded on paper, distributed to students, and discussed on the first day of class, but as agreements forged to ensure a classroom that supports maximum success for each of its learners.

1. We will show respect for people, their ideas, and their property
2. We will work hard to ensure our own growth and to assist the growth of others
3. We will persist, even when things are difficult and uncertain
4. We will accept responsibility for the quality of our work and for our behaviors and actions
   
   

    

Classroom Routines

Routines ensure that students understand how the class will begin and end,

how to keep records of their work, how to move around the classroom in acceptable ways,

how to use time wisely, how to figure out where they should be and what they should be doing

at any given time, where to put work when they finish,

how to get help when the teacher is working directly with others, and so on.

• Use visual cues
• Pre-establish groups
• Use goal card regularly
• Teach for smooth transitions

Support System

Supports for Learner Success:

• Vary materials
• Use graphic organizers to help structure and extend thinking
• Provide survival packets
• Use participation prompts
• Build language bridges

 Shared Responsibility in the Classroom

It’s important for teachers to make clear that they are counting on each student

to work with them as a team to improve the class every day.

Shared Responsibility:

• Use evaluation checklists
• Involve students in scheduling decisions
• Engage students in assessing their own progress
• Help students learn to set their own academic goals