podcast

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What Can I Do?

What can one teacher do to contribute to a positive school climate? I believe every interaction teachers have with students, colleagues, families and the community can make a difference. Here are a few steps I plan to take.

A safe, supportive classroom climate can definitely increase student motivation and learning. My first goal is to encourage student interaction into the classroom by exploring strategies that give students a more active role in their own learning. To do this, I plan to spend time this summer learning new ways to infuse cooperative, collaborative learning tasks into the classroom to increase student motivation and participation. Class, group and partner discussions that allow students to freely share ideas and opinions are important to build the thinking and reasoning skills they will need in the future. I would also like to incorporate more student goal setting into the classroom and provide more opportunities for the students to reflect on what they are learning. Learning needs to be something students actively pursue.

The second way I commit to making a positive contribution to my school’s climate is to initiate more professional discussions about student learning and teaching practice with my colleagues. School must be a place where the focus is on learning for all. Teachers who are continually learning, and have a clear vision for students have better morale and bring more enthusiasm to their school. During the past two years, teachers in our school participated in a literacy cohort through UMF. This cohort helped teachers improve practice by gaining new skills and knowledge in metacognitive teaching strategies, and it really emphasized the “teacher as learner” role. Peer mentoring was a particularly powerful component of this cohort. More collaborative relationships were built and kept us focused on common goals for student learning. This two year literacy initiative has “officially” ended, but it is my hope to continue this work because it has positively affected learning for both students and teachers. Administrative support is necessary for this to happen. The specific goal is to be given support for continued opportunities to observe literacy strategies teachers are using in other classrooms.

Finally, I plan to work on building stronger partnerships with parents to improve build climate. After completing a school climate survey last year, we gained important information about our school’s strengths and weaknesses. Our staff is currently working on actively promoting more positive student feedback to parents and families on a more consistent basis. We will send positive postcards home each trimester that validates each student’s efforts and contributions to our school community. We are also taking a look at ways to plan more whole school events that invite informal parent participation, such as monthly family breakfasts that also incorporate learning that is useful to parents. For example, information and support on how to help students do homework independently could be a focus at one breakfast. Teachers will be involved in the planning of these events. As a classroom teacher, I know many parents want to be more involved, but work schedules make it difficult for them to volunteer, so I would like to investigate new ways to also get them involved in what we are doing in the classroom. Finally, I commit to attending at least two PTO meetings this year. Working closely with parents benefits everyone in our school community.

One teacher cannot do it all, but every teacher can help make school a positive learning place.

School Children image taken from http://www.flickr.com/photos/23311439@N03/2229080745/