I selected Cool Cat Teacher Blog at http://coolcatteacherblogspot.com to read for this blog posting because this blog won the 2008 Edublog Award for Best Teacher Blog in 2008. The author, Vicki Davis, has also own various other awards and is a Google Certified Teacher and a Discovery S.T.A.R Educator. A teacher and IT Director at Westwood Schools in Camilla, Georgia, Ms. Davis has co-created four award winning wiki-centric projects and is a co-founder of the Flat Classroom Conference that was held in Beijing, China in February 2010. This conference linked more than 2800 students from public and private schools by using powerful Web 2.0 tools including plns, wikis, blogs, digital storytelling, podcasts, social bookmarking, and more.
I read the January 20, 2011 blog titled "Make Your Classroom a Welcoming Place". In this post, Ms. Davis highlighted six things to do as a teacher in the classroom to make a safe, welcoming environment.
1. Watch - watch the body language of kids in your classroom and be aware of your comments or other students comments that might be offensive or hurtful. If you said or did something that may have been offensive, quietly apologize to the student.
2. Apologize - if you mess up, say your sorry. This will build rapport and show students you are human too.
3. Defend - Let the kids know they are safe in your classroom. If a student does or says something hurtful or offensive to another student, acknowledge it as such and do not ignore it.
4. Mute - NEVER, NEVER, NEVER say students grades out loud in class. Either good or bad grades as kids will be picked on either way.
5. Love - love the students with "Tender Love" nothing inappropriate but let them know you care.
6. Eye Contact - look students in the eye and call them by name. This will let kids know you cared enough about them to learn their name.
According to Ms. Davis, these little changes will make a big difference. I think she has some great ideas and things that we as teachers can easily incorporate into our classrooms. I believe it is so important to learn students' names to show them you care about them as individuals. I also believe in apologizing for mistakes and am not afraid to tell a student I might not know the answer to one of their questions. This makes us human and models to the student that it is OK to not have all the answers. I need to get better at watching and reading body language and determining how a student is reacting and receiving my teaching messages, comments and suggestions.
I am looking forward to following Cool Cat Teacher blog now and in the future as I believe she has valuable insights to offer me as an aspiring teacher.
After reading your post, I am definitely going to check out the coolcatteacher blog. The information you and Sarah shared from this blog is very pertinent and presented in a simple way.
ReplyDeleteI found the Mute, Mute, Mute comment interesting because I have seen the teacher announce the grades, the students were given a choice first, but this is an interesting view point and I think I agree with not saying them out loud, ever.
Great point - paying attention to student's body language is vital to understanding them and helps to assess their engagement and learning.
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