Creating a Safe and Supportive Classroom

In order for students of any background to learn, they must feel safe and supported (Parrett & Budge, 2012).  Although this may sound simple, that may not always be the case.  Students may live in chaotic home environments, may be experiencing homelessness, may be food insecure or many other things.  62% of children have physical symptoms related to stress caused by various sources like not getting enough sleep, overstuffed schedules, media saturation, bullying or teasing, and academic pressure (Shaw, 2015). In order to create a space where learning can happen these two aspects must be addressed by us as educators.  So how do we make our classrooms, as Goodwin and Hubbell (2013) would call them, oases of safety, positivity, and support?

Safe Classroom

Michael Rhod,  a teaching artist and arts-based community organizer (1998) says a safe space is "A working environment where participants feel comfortable playing and honestly sharing their thoughts and feelings” (p. 5).  This is in the context of theater and improvisation, but it can be applied directly to any working environment like a classroom.  One great way to have students honestly share and feel comfortable to play and be themselves is the use of a classroom covenant for acceptable behavior.  It is important to be clear and that your students are clear about what behavior is acceptable in the class (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2013).  A classroom is a group enterprise that works best when both teacher and students interact with one another in ways they have agreed upon in advance (Haskins, 2015).

A class covenant can be created the first day.  Students and teacher gather around a large paper and go over how they will agree to behave in the class.  When I create a covenant with classes, I like to start with the basic PBIS tenets that they see in our whole school.  Ours are being safe, respectful, responsible, and kind.  Those are so broad that I ask students to give examples of how to do these things for our covenant.  These items become the main points of the covenant.  It is also important to remind them that it is not the same as a class contract.  A contract has an easy out clause, meaning if you break the contract it is over.  A covenant however, doesn’t work that way.  If you break a part of the covenant, you and the group have to work together to get you back into the covenant.  That is my favorite part about covenants, they focus on getting back in and not pushing out.  What better safety net is there than that?  The students and I sign the covenant signifying that we agree and understand that it can be changed when needed.

Supportive Classroom 

Good, comprehensive support in the classroom uses a needs-based approach and the mindset of doing whatever it takes to make students successful (Parrett & Budge, 2012).  This may sound a tad radical, but “whatever it takes” has to be the bottomline for student support.  If kids are hungry then feed them; if kids are dirty then wash them; if kids are tired then find a way for them to rest.  Without these basic needs fulfilled, teaching is a losing battle to a student’s survival instinct.  This is especially true as some of us head back into classrooms amongst a pandemic.  My goal for this year is basically making sure the students are physically and emotionally healthy.  If they learn about science and technology along the way, great.  

In the meantime there are some practical things that we can do to create supportive classrooms for students.  Here are some suggestions from Parrett and Budge (2012) for doing just that:

• Understand the influence of the student's life situation on learning.  Take the time to get to know each student’s situation so that you know what supports are needed.

• Foster a bond between you and the student.  This means taking time to create relationships with students, setting high expectations, and providing tools to support these expectations.

• Create Advisory groups and smaller learning environments.  Create small groups of students that meet regularly with their mentors or advisors, maybe you or another staff member.

• Create links between school and home, teachers and families.  Make sure that you are communicating with families not just about problems, but successes.  The more you know about students' lives outside of school, the more you can support inside.

• Focus on Trust.  Trust is “...the essential building block in the positive relationships that foster authentic school improvement” (Parrett & Budge, 2012, para. 57).  The translation: do what you say you will and expect the same of students.

If we as educators can create safe and supportive spaces for students so much of the work will be done.  That doesn’t mean it is easy, but it is worth it.

References

Goodwin, B., & Hubbell, E. R. (2013). The 12 touchstones of good teaching: a checklist for staying focused every day. ASCD, McREL International.

Haskins, M. E. (2015, March 4). A Classroom Covenant. BizEd. Retrieved from https://bized.aacsb.edu/articles/2015/03/a-classroom-covenant

Parrett, W. H., & Budge, K. M. (2012). Chapter 8. Fostering a Healthy, Safe, and Supportive Learning Environment: How HP/HP Schools Do It. In Turning High-Poverty Schools into High-Performing Schools. ASCD. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/109003/chapters/Fostering-a-Healthy,-Safe,-and-Supportive-Learning-Environment@-How-HP~HP-Schools-Do-It.aspx

Rohd, M. P. (1998). Theatre for Community, Conflict and Dialogue: Hope Is Vital Training Manual. Heinemann Press.

Shaw, G. (2015, August 27). 10 Reasons Your Child Might Be Stressed. WebMD. Retrieved from https://www.webmd.com/special-reports/kids-and-stress/20150827/what-you-can-do

Frequent Checks for Understanding

“Does that make sense?” has passed over my lips so many times in my classroom.  I often get nods or grunts, the occasional question.  I have been guilty of this half-hearted check for understanding too many times.  Oftentimes students will simply stay quiet, because they are too confused, too embarrassed to ask, or they think they get it, but they don’t (Fisher & Frey, 2014).  This doesn’t give me a real look at what my students understand and may lead to gaps in understanding that will show up much later in instruction or even life.  Checking for understanding can enhance student learning and teach good study skills in the process, showing students that as I am checking their understanding, they should check their own (Fisher & Frey, 2014).  Goodwin and Hubble (2013) suggest that these checks be done every 10 to 15 minutes in class to enhance learning.

So what quick checks can I start using today to check for student understanding?  Here are my top five picks for the 2020 school year:

1. Hand Signals

   Students respond to a concept or question with signals of understanding like a thumbs up or down, waving for a question (Regier, 2012).  Teachers can also create a scale of understanding for students, ie. one finger means “I don’t understand;” five fingers means “I am an expert and could teach this to others” (TeachingChannel, 2011).

2. Exit/Entrance Tickets

   These are written responses to questions about learning that happened that day, or the day before (Regier, 2012).  This will help in planning the direction of the next class to close any gaps in understanding.  This can be done on paper, but could be digital too taking advantage of a digital platform like Padlet or Polleverywhere.

3. Four Corners/Move to Where You Are

   Students move to the corner of the room that represents their level of understanding, ie. corner one is “need’s help” and corner four is “I got this” (Regier, 2012).  This movement could also represent a physical quiz of sorts.  If each corner is an option for a multiple choice question it will be a much more active way of assessing knowledge.  Adding movement into class strengthens learning, improves retrieval of information and memory, and improves learner morale and motivation (Jensen, 2005). 

4. Think, Pair/Group, Share

   Students think of their individual response to a question or idea then share with a partner or group.  Several groups are called on to say what they shared out loud (Regier, 2012).  Research has shown that educational experiences that are active, social and student-owned lead to deeper learning (Center for Teaching Innovation, n.d.).  Allowing students to share ideas then share back is a great check of understanding or misconceptions.

5. Journal/Blog/Vlog

   Students record in a journal an entry surrounding what they understand about a topic (Regier, 2012).  This has long been a standard in classrooms, but with the advent of technology, these entries can be made via blog or vlog.  This is a great way for differentiating for students that are not as strong as writers as well.  Using video or technology can also motivate students that are not as excited about pencil and paper.

These formative assessments should allow me to check understanding in my students.  So, then what?  What if all, most, a few, or even one student does not understand?  Here is the important step of feed-forward.  Taking the information gleaned from the checks and doing something with it is of utmost importance.  Here's what can be done for each instance:

• Everyone in the class doesn’t understand.

Reteach.  It is that simple.  Consider what went wrong the first time or how you can chunk the material differently so that students can understand.  For reteaching to be effective, it must focus on the omissions and errors in student thinking (Marzano, 2010).  Don’t be embarrassed to have to reteach, remember the goal is mastery and understanding.

• Most in the class don’t understand.

This could be an opportunity to reteach to the whole class.  If most of the class doesn’t understand it may not be a bad idea to go back.  However, collaboration can help here too.  Consider grouping students that understand the material with those who don’t, making the process beneficial to both.

• A few in the class don’t understand.

Here we can use the power of small group instruction.  Perhaps I as a teacher could take the group that doesn’t understand and do some guided instruction with them.  Guided instruction is the strategic use of questions and prompts for students (Fisher & Frey, 2014) and would be a perfect tool for small group work on content for a few students.

• One student doesn’t understand.

It is time for a one on one interview and work.  I can look at what the student doesn’t understand and work on differentiating the material so that they do. Content, process, or products can be differentiated for student learning (Fisher & Frey 2014).  Perhaps they need the information in a graphic form or something else.  Only knowing your student and finding out what is being missed will solve the problem.

References

Center for Teaching Innovation. (n.d.). Collaborative Learning [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://teaching.cornell.edu/teaching-resources/engaging-students/collaborative-learning

Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2014). Ch. 1: Why check for understanding? In Checking for understanding: Formative assessment techniques for your classroom (2nd ed.).  ASCD. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/115011/chapters/Why-Check-for-Understanding%C2%A2.aspx

Goodwin, B., & Hubble, E. R. (2013). The 12 touchstones of good teaching: a checklist for staying focused every day. ASCD, McREL International.

Jensen, E. (2005). Chapter 4. Movement and Learning. In Teaching with the Brain in Mind, 2nd Edition. ASCD. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/104013/chapters/Movement-and-Learning.aspx

Marzano, R. J. (2010). Art and Science of Teaching / Reviving Reteaching. Educational Leadership, 68, 2nd ser., 82-83. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/oct10/vol68/num02/Reviving-Reteaching.aspx#:~:text=At a basic level, reteaching,content the teacher must reteach.

Regier, N. (2012). Book two: 60 formative assessment strategies. Regier Educational Resources. Retrieved from https://stjschools.instructure.com/courses/26673/files/105219

TeachingChannel (2011). Talking About Teaching with Jim Knight [video]. TeachingChannel. Retrieved from https://library.teachingchannel.org/landing-page?mediaid=0KHOLCMi&playerid=7Ftxba59

Communicating with Parents Early and Often

Setting up clear lines of communication with parents or guardians is to your advantage as a teacher.  Quite frankly, good communication with parents will just make your life easier.  The more you communicate, keep them abreast of classroom happenings and school news they will feel more like part of the team.  The result are parents that are more supportive, more understanding, and less likely to have a negative conclusion when something comes up with their child (Mariconda, 2003).

I want to quickly note here that I am using the term parents and guardians interchangeably.  It goes without saying that families are infinitely diverse in their makeup and details.  One large barrier to communication is when teachers use their own cultural and belief-based lenses while interacting with culturally and linguistically diverse guardians (Graham-Clay, 2005).  As hard as it seems, those lenses must be set aside or at least acknowledged to open lines of communication.  Holding onto these lenses is, at best, unintentionally disinviting and, at worst, intentionally so (Purkey & Novak, 2015).  So when I use the term parent or guardian, I mean to say any person(s) that meet the three major goals of parenting as laid out by the American Psychological Association (n.d.):

1. Ensuring a child’s health and safety (basic needs).

2. Preparing children for life as productive adults.

3. Transmitting values.

Whoever is taking on these important tasks or parenting, research points to the fact that the more parents and teachers communicate relevant information about a student the better both are at supporting the student’s achievement (American Federation of Teachers, 2007).  You can follow some simple guidelines in connecting with parents provided by the American Federation of Teachers (2007):

• Initiation.  You should contact parents in one form or another as soon as you know who is going to be in your class.  This sets the precedent that you are open to two-way communications and establishes expectations.

• Timeliness. You should make contact as soon as possible if a problem occurs.  New frustrations and problems can come from waiting or ignoring the problem.

• Consistency and Frequency.  Most parents want ongoing honest feedback about their students and their growth or sticking points.

• Follow Through. “Parents and teachers each want to see that the other will actually do what they say they will do” (para. 14). 

• Clarity and Usefulness.  Both parents and teachers need information that helps the student in a form that is easy to use and understand.

By making the effort to communicate with parents early and often you will be making gainful strides to the success of your students.  From the minute call about a good day to the dreaded call about an issue, if the lines of communication are open and honest from the start, everyone involved will be better served.   

References

American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Parenting. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/topics/parenting

American Federation of Teachers. (2007). Building Parent-Teacher Relationships. Reading Rockets. Retrieved from https://www.readingrockets.org/article/building-parent-teacher-relationships

Graham-Clay, S. (2005). Communicating with Parents: Strategies for Teachers. School Community Journal, 15, 1st ser., 117-129. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ794819.pdf.

Mariconda, B. (2003). Five Keys to Successful Parent-Teacher Communication. Scholastic. Retrieved from https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/five-keys-successful-parent-teacher-communication/?eml=SSO/aff/20180319/96525/txtl/GenericLink///////&affiliate_id=96525&clickId=3182665199

Purkey, W. W., & Novak, J. M. (2015). An Introduction to Invitational Theory (Rep.). Retrieved from https://www.invitationaleducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/art_intro_to_invitational_theory-1.pdf.

Creating Higher Level Study Guides

Goodwin and Hubbell (2013) remind us that we as educators should peel back the curtain to make our expectations clear.  Wiggins and McTighe (2006) suggest that we should build our lessons with the end in mind.  Does this mean that students should be able to see the end of year/unit summative assessment to use as a guide? The simple answer; yes, but no.  Let me explain.

Being clear about what is being assessed is very important.  Teachers should, in precise ways, clearly articulate expectations to students and what it looks like when those objectives are met (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2013).  So it would stand to reason that if the ultimate summative assessment of those objectives was a test, that to give the students the test up front in the form of a study guide would do just that.  Students could see exactly what information was needed and how it should be regurgitated on the test.  This would, in fact, be very useful for the student that is needing to complete work on the bottom of Bloom’s taxonomy.  In the graphic below from Vanderbuilt (2016), in the base of the pyramid we see the tasks that would best be suited by this plan.  Students could duplicate, list and memorize using the test study guide as a template.

There are many situations in which this would be a handy tool, especially in the field of elementary education.  In an elementary setting, students often need to repeat and memorize information since it forms the basis of moving to understanding in this taxonomy.  The question remains then, are these study guides only for that basic level of the taxonomy?  Or can a guide based on the summative assessment be valuable for a higher order level of understanding?

Study guides themselves are useful tools.  Study guides “...enable students to draw upon their existing knowledge to assist them in formulating meaning from the text, are constructive, dynamic (affective and cognitive), and interactive tools” (Hollingsead et al., 2004, p. 57). The use of study guides has been linked to percentile growth in several studies with some gains in the 70th and 80th percentiles  (Hollingsead et al., 2004).  However, simply giving students the answers to the test in a different format, in this case a study guide, could be argued only to be at the bottom level of the taxonomy regardless of the style.  So this couldn’t be the type of study guide that is described in the quote above.  Simply memorizing an answer can’t truly be a dynamic interactive tool. Not to mention that effective study guides are personal to students and their learning styles (Thurler, n.d.).

Kasey Short (2019) gives a great metacognitive method for students to create their own study guides.  

1. First students answer questions about the content that will be on the assessment or review questions created by the teacher.

2. Students then individually write down or draw everything that they know about the topic from memory.  This should be done in regular pencil. A digital version of this would be typing everything they know in black text.

3. Students are then put into groups and discuss what they wrote down or drew on their papers.  As the group discusses, students write down information from peers that they didn’t have in new colors.  Again, digitally, this could look like adding new ideas in new text colors to your doc or sharing docs as a group to get the new info onto your study guide.  During this time, the teacher walks the room looking for gaps or misunderstandings.

4. Ask the students what they should be studying for the assessment.  Many will say that they should study the information in black, but remind them that this is info that they already knew.  You can celebrate that fact.  Tell them that the info on their page that is in different colors are things they need to spend more time on when preparing for the assessment.

5. Students take one more look at the review questions and determine what they need to add to their study guide.

In this way students will be able to have the use of a study guide that will be more like the dynamic and interactive one mentioned by Hollingsead et al (2004) and also get the content that you want them to see without handing them a copy of the test to memorize.  Hopefully, this leads them up the pyramid to understanding and not just remembering. 

References

Goodwin, B., & Hubble, E. R. (2013). The 12 touchstones of good teaching: a checklist for staying focused every day. ASCD, McREL International.

Hollingsead, C. C., Ostrander, R. J., & Schilling, J. (2004). Study Guides: Teacher Tips: A Review of Literature with Practical Implications. Language Arts Journal of Michigan, 20(2), 57–64. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1234&context=lajm

Short, K. (2019, July 17). Study Strategies Beyond Memorization. Edutopia. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/article/study-strategies-beyond-memorization

Thurler, P. (n.d.). How to Create a Successful Study Guide. Herzing University Blog. Retrieved from https://www.herzing.edu/blog/how-create-successful-study-guide

Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. (2016, Sept. 6). Bloom’s taxonomy [Image file]. Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/vandycft/29428436431

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2006). Understanding by design (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.