Educators value the success of all students. Educators care for students and act in their best interests.
Standard 1 is a standard that is significantly important to me because I am very passionate about providing an inclusive learning environment for ALL students. To me this means making connections with all students in the class, from the loud to the quiet, to the outstanding learners to the exceptional learners. To be an educator does not just mean to educate the ones that can grasp the knowledge or answer all the questions right away, it means teaching all students, no matter their learning abilities.
In 391practicum making connections and being able to relate to students is something that I personal feel I succeed in. It was a goal of mine to make sure that I knew at least one piece of information about all the students in the class. This goal gave me the chance to then learn about my students and apply it to my teaching skills. By knowing certain information about students such as their favourite book, subject, artist, ability to read and write, if they love or hate math etc. it then allowed for me to have a brief overview on how each student would connect to the lessons I taught, as well as how I could make it relate to them in different ways.
One of my strategies for encouraging the success of all students during 391 practicums was to greet them every morning and create a connection so that they could share with me how they were doing right from the start of the day. Every morning I would go around and say “hi and hello” to each student. This made them aware of me and that I was there to give them the attention and conversation that was needed, but it also allowed me to get a sense of each and every student and was a great indicator for how their day would go just based on how they would greet me back in the morning.
An example of this was during the second week one of the students came running into the classroom and was being very overactive for the beginning of class. By getting him to stop, breath and say good morning it calmed them down for a moment and allowed me the time to address why they were acting out like so when school had just started. We had a short conversation where they informed me that they did not sleep well the night before and that even though they were being very loud they were quite tired. During the day it was obvious to see that they were starting to drift off into imagination land and not focusing. While before I would have just thought they were just not interested in the lesson and not giving me any attention, I knew that they were just tired and would not have the ability to produce the work that I knew they were normally capable of.
By having these connections, it then allows for me to address situations as the one above in a new manner. I could then give that student strategies to help them cope with how they were feeling and make adjustments for the work that they were providing. This also meant scaffolding this student work so that they would not be faulted for having an off day. This was a great strategy that I learned from my coaching teacher to help with all the learners in the class and identify they work that would then be produced every day.