Impacting True Student Growth
As a classroom instructor, your critical student interactions generally fall into one of three categories. The most common is the typical classroom setting, with the teacher instructing, modeling, or leading a class activity with the whole class. A second interaction is the quick "touching base" with individual students. This includes the "friendly chat,” giving reminders to use a specific strategy, a "dip-check" to assess understanding, or a reminder to refocus. While this strategy is an essential tool to gauge learning and enhance engagement, it hardly is where real student growth takes place.
Real, deep, personal, and individualized student growth occurs when teacher and student have targeted and strategic "growth conversations.” This is the real “meat and potatoes” of student change, where the teacher expresses appreciation and acknowledgment of the student's specific strengths, targets an area of weakness (one which may hold much leverage for future success), teaches, models, and supports the learning of a new strategy or idea to infuse growth, and builds in some accountability to help the student learn and put the strategy into action.
This is where real change happens and where teachers, despite the difficulty in finding the time and honing these skills, will find the greatest gratification and build the strongest student relationships. The key is, to make this type of student interaction woven in to your classroom and teaching culture. You take notes on what you observe about how each individual student learns, how they take notes, how they study, engage in class activities, and interact with others in ways that either enhance or impede their academic growth. Set specific times in your week to hold these appointments with your students one on one. The focus is “growth,” as you make the student aware, in a manner in which they will be receptive, of your observation and how his being open to a new idea or strategy will create greater levels of success. Remember, that even stronger students who are performing relatively well, also deserve and need a teacher’s touch to point out additional areas of growth or perhaps to create some “stretch goals.”
Teachers who interact in this way find the greatest satisfaction in impacting students positively. The students not only grow from the personalized and individualized coaching but from the special attention and observations from their teacher.
