Dos and Don'ts

Do

• Make an effort to get to know each student in your classroom. Always call them by their names and strive to understand what they need to succeed in school (Croninger & Lee, 2001). 

• Make an effort to spend time individually with each student, especially those who are difficult or shy. This will help you create a more positive relationship with them (Pianta, 1999; Rudasill, Rimm-Kaufman, Justice, & Pence, 2006). 

• Be aware of the explicit and implicit messages you are giving to your students (Pianta, et al., 2001; Rimm-Kaufman et al., 2002). Be careful to show your students that you want them to do well in school through both actions and words. 

• Create a positive climate in your classroom by focusing not only on improving your relationships with your students, but also on enhancing the relationships among your students (Charney, 2002; Donahue, Perry & Weinstein, 2003).

Don’t

• Don’t assume that being kind and respectful to students is enough to bolster their achievement. Ideal classrooms have more than a single goal: in ideal classrooms, teachers hold their students to appropriately high standards of academic performance and offer students an opportunity for an emotional connection to their teachers, their fellow students and the school (e.g., Gregory & Weinstein, 2004; McCombs, 2001). 

• Don’t give up too quickly on your efforts to develop positive relationships with difficult students. These students will benefit from a good teacher-student relationship as much or more than their easier-to-get-along-with peers (Baker, 2006; Birch & Ladd, 1998). Don’t assume that respectful and sensitive interactions are only important to elementary school students. Middle and high school students benefit from such relationships as well (Croninger & Lee, 2001; Meece, Herman, & McCombs, 2003; Wentzel, 2002). 

• Don’t assume that relationships are inconsequential. Some research suggests that preschool children who have a lot of conflict with their teachers show increases in stress hormones when they interact with these teachers (Lisonbee, Mize, Payne, & Granger, 2008).

Importance of knowing students

Knowing a student’s interests can help you create examples to match those interests. If a student who loves basketball comes to you with a question about a mathematics problem, you might respond to him or her with a problem involving basketball. This type of specific responding shows that you care about him or her.

Likewise, knowing a student's temperament can help you craft appropriate learning opportunities. If a girl in your class is particularly distractible, you can support her efforts to concentrate by offering her a quieter area in which to work.

Positive discourse with students

Think about what you say to the difficult students in your classroom. Are you constantly bombarding them with requests to do something or telling them to stop doing what they are doing? No one likes being badgered and pestered, and your students are no exception. Instead, you should find a time or place when you can have positive discussion with the problem student.

Note that near the end of this video clip, the teacher redirects the attention of a young boy in a red shirt. She does this in a way that is physical and direct, yet demonstrates her sensitivity toward the child.

Giving students meaningful feedback

Are you giving students meaningful feedback that says you care about them and their learning, or are you constantly telling your students to hurry? In your conversations, are you focusing on what your students have accomplished or are you concentrating your comments on what they have not yet mastered? Do your body positions, facial expressions, and tone of voice show your students that you are interested in them as people? Are you telling them to do one thing, yet you model quite different behavior? For example, are you telling your students to listen to each other, but then look bored when one of them talks to the class? Be sure that the feedback you give to your students conveys the message that you are supporting their learning and that you care about them. 

At one point in this video clip, the teacher identifies how the children’s rubber band patterns resemble letters. By doing this, she is not only providing academic instruction but she is also offering behavioral and social cues that suggest that she cares about the children. Thus, the teacher is giving children both explicit (i.e., “It looks like the letter ‘S’.”) and implicit messages (i.e., “I care about you.”)

Create a positive climate

Be sure to allow time for your students to link the concepts and skills they are learning to their own experiences. Build fun into the things you do in your classroom. In other words, plan activities that create a sense of community so that your students have an opportunity to see the connections between what they already know and the new things they are learning, as well as have the time to enjoy being with you and the other students.

Ideal classrooms have complementary goals

Here is a video clip of an eight year old boy talking about how a teacher's high expectations motivated him to do his homework, even though he was tired after a busy day at school.

Relationships with difficult students

Difficult students require more energy on your part. For example, you may need to spend time with them individually to get to know them better -- to understand their interests and what motivates them. This will not only allow you to tailor your instruction to their interests and motivation, but the time spent will also allow them to develop trust in you. Recent research on high school students who have frequent and intense discipline problems shows that when adolescents perceive that their teachers are trustworthy people, they show less defiant behavior (Gregory & Ripski, 2008).

This video clip highlights a teacher talking about how developing positive relationships is particularly important with behaviorally difficult children.

Respectful and sensitive interactions

Supportive teacher-student relationships are just as important to middle and high school students as they are to elementary students. Positive relationships encourage students’ motivation and engagement in learning. Older students need to feel that their teachers respect their opinions and interests just as much as younger students do.