| As teachers, we can strong influence our students' developing identity and academic self-concepts. Describe 4 outlines that can help us to do so. | 1. Support autonomy and initiative in your students.
2. Maintain high expectations and provide students with evidence of increasing competence.
3. Create a safe and caring learning community in your classroom.
4. Communicate that students' ethnic backgrounds are valued and contribute to learning. |
| How do we support autonomy and initiative in students? | As teachers, we can support psychosocial development in a variety of ways.
For example, if you're planning to teach in preschool or elementary, you can ENCOURAGE children to complete tasks for themselves and reward them for taking initiative.
In middle school or higher levels of education, we can publicly reinforce student's autonomy and initiative with COMMENTS like "I really like it when someone acts on their own and takes the initiative to make our classroom better."
With a positive tone, this comment show that the teacher values all personal initiative in the classroom. |
| What really works to improve students' self-concepts? | Students develop self-concepts on the basis of feedback they receive about their competence.
Efforts to improve self-concepts (and self-esteem) directly through activities that focus explicitly on these constructs, such as having minority students study multicultural learning materials, sending children to summer camps, and implementing support groups, are MISGUIDED and largely UNSUCCESSFUL (O'Mara, Marsh, Craven, & Debus, 2006; Schunk et al., 2014).
The ONLY legitimate way to improve student's self-concepts is by providing them with evidence that their competence is increasing. |
| How do we show students that their academic competence is increasing? | Personal improvement is the key to perceptions of increasing competence, and it also helps students achieve a positive resolution of the industry-inferiority crisis.
Teachers should emphasise IMPROVEMENTS versus actual scores, and put students' marks on the LAST PAGE of quizzes and exams in a symbolic gesture of deemphasising competition. |
| How do we create a safe and caring learning community in our classrooms? | We can start with an informal classroom meeting/chat with all the students. A classroom structure that sets predictable limits for acceptable behaviour, combined with the empathy that helps students negotiate the uncertainties of this period in their lives, is important.
"Students ... say that they want teachers to articulate and enforce clear standards of behaviour. They view this not just as part of the teacher's job but as evidence that the teacher really cares about them" (Brophy. 2010, p. 24). |
| Why is it important for teachers to create a safe and caring learning community for ALL students? | At all levels, students need a safe and nurturing learning environment. This is particularly true for students who have exceptionalities and students who are gay or lesbian, who are often mistreated and experience discrimination at the hands of other students (Patrick, Bell, Huang, Lazarakis, & Edwards, 2013).
Homosexual students are at greater risk for problems ranging from depression and substance abuse to suicide (McGuire, Anderson, Toomey, & Russey, 2010; Needham & Austin, 201). Peer harassment is a major contributor to these problems.
Teachers play an essential role in setting the TONE for your classroom, ensuring that it is a safe place for ALL students. |
| How do we communicate to students' that their ethnic backgrounds are valued and contribute to learning? | 1. The teacher can give a genuine expression of enthusiasm about a student's cultural traditions.
2. The teacher should give affirmations that every student is welcomed and valued in his/her classroom.
3. The teacher can learn simple phrases and gestures in the language of the student. This with have powerful impact on their developing identities and sense of cultural self-worth (Ahrens, DuBois, Lozano, & Richardson, 2010).
4. Teachers can go further by recognising the achievements of ethnic minorities. For instance, providing a short biography of Julian Castro, a politician of Mexican descent, who was elected mayor of San Antonio, Texas, in 2009, reelected in 2011, and appointed to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development in Obama's cabinet in 2014. As another example, if there is a student of Middle Eastern backgrounds in your class, you could emphasise the contributions of Omar Khayyam, a Persian philosopher and mathematician, who in the 11th and 12th centuries laid down the principles of algebra.
Examples for members of all minorities can be found, and emphasising them communicates that you VALUE and RESPECT all backgrounds of all students in your class. Doing so can make an important contribution to their sense of identity and increase their motivation to learn. |
