Becoming a Star Teacher: Teacher Response in Action

Sometimes one goes on vacation with the hopes of encountering celebrities.

This is the way students can feel about teachers: we can be their "star".

Remember how we looked at the teacher responds to what the student seeks?

Below you'll find strategies/guidelines/tips on different facets of teacher response in action.

Implementing these, when done with sincerity, will have your students looking up to you as their star!

Strategies for Building a Positive Classroom Environment:

• study students’ cultures
• convey status
• commend creativity
• make room for all kinds of learners
• help students know about one another
• celebrate success
• hold goal-setting conferences
• use dialogue journals
• incorporate teacher talk groups in lesson plans

Guidelines & Strategies for Enhancing Classroom Operation:

1. show respect for people, their ideas and their property
2. work hard to ensure our own growth and to assist the growth of others
3. will persist, even when things are difficult and uncertain
4. will accept responsibility for the quality of our work and for our behaviors and actions

• time is valuable
• fair is ensuring all learners get what they need to succeed
• teach up, work up

Classroom Routines:

Ensure students understand how the class begins and ends, how to get and put away materials, how to keep records of their work, how to move around the classroom in acceptable ways, how to use time wisely, how to figure out where they should be and what they should be doing at a given time, where to put finished work, and how to get help when teacher is working directly with other students.

• make them clear and predictable
• GOAL: for students to develop autonomy as learners
• How to reach that GOAL: teach them to do things themselves

• use visual cues, pre-established groups
• use goal cards regularly
• teach for smooth transitions

Kinds of Support for Learners' Success:
One scenario I loved from the reading is called “keeper of the book”. One student each week is responsible for logging homework assignments, key information covered in class, and questions and answers important to student success

• entries are dated and signed by individual in charge. This book is great to help absent students to get caught up.

Other ideas to support students:

• vary materials
• use graphic organizers to help structure and extend thinking
• provide survival packets
• use participation prompts
• build language bridges

What Shared Responsibility Looks Like:

• Daily classroom chore assignments (care for plants and animals, distribution and collection of materials, washing desktops and straighten furniture at end of day, record weather info, sweep floor & straighten materials, post announcements/hand out messages/takes office info)
• Evaluation Checklists
• Involve students in scheduling decisions
• engage students in assessing their own progress
• help students learn to set their own academic goals

Reference

Tomlinson, C. (2003). Fulfilling the promise of the differentiated classroom: Strategies and tools for responsive teaching. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.