Learning Environment
2. It contributes to a student’s willingness to do the difficult work of learning. Students work for people they value (i.e., people who value them). 3. It helps the teacher accept responsibility for the student’s success. We invest most deeply in the people we really know—those with whom we have a relationship and those who are “three dimensional” to us. It’s difficult to let those individuals down. 4. It provides an open and continually expanding window into each student as an individual and a learner. Understanding a student’s culture, likes and dislikes, personal sense of possibility as a learner, relationships with peers, home support, dreams, strengths and vulnerabilities, and preferred ways of learning make it possible for a teacher to plan approaches to curriculum and instruction that have a higher likelihood of facilitating success for individual learners and for the class as a whole. Teachers use an incredibly wide array of strategies to get to know their students as the year begins and to continue to learn about them as the year progresses. Consider the following examples: • An elementary teacher had her students play a “getting to know you” game in which her 4th graders searched for classmates who had particular attributes (See Figure 4.1). After the game, the teacher asked students to look at patterns in their classroom. She said, “Everyone who has an unusual pet, please come stand by me at the front of the room and tell us about your pet.” She then said, “If you said you like helping out at school or home, raise your hand.” To those students, she said, “Tomorrow, we’ll begin to assign some important jobs in our classroom. I hope you’ll consider signing up for one of those roles.” During the game and ensuing activity, the teacher took notes on student data sheets and later alphabetized and accompanied her notes with photos she took of her students on the first day of school. She systematically added to the notes throughout the year as she observed students, talked with them, and generated preassessment and formative assessment information. She sometimes used the sheets in conversations with students, and she sometimes used them in parent conferences—showing parents what she was learning and inviting them to contribute their own insights. She often used them to plan lessons that were designed in response to her students’ varied interests and needs. By the end of the school year, each student was represented by multiple data sheets and a “learner biography.”
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