teacher vulnerability: a precursor to student engagement, rapport, and performance
DESCRIPTION
How often do we share our creations, performances, and/or writing with our students?TRANSCRIPT
Teacher Vulnerability: A Precursor to Student Engagement, Rapport, and Performance
Two Year College Association Midwest ConferenceGrand Valley State University
Grand Rapids, MI 10/4/14
A’Kena LongBenton, ABD, EdSWayne County Community College
Thought-provoking Questions
• As teachers, we instruct our students to “write…write…write…and write some more,” but how often do we write?
• As much as we critique our students’ writing, are we willing to be vulnerable enough to share our creations, performances, and/or writings with our overly critical students?
Logistics
• Workshop Questions Web Link: http://goo.gl/AzCOQC
• Today’s Workshop Slides: _____ • Poll Everywhere: http://goo.gl/vBTV3p
Vulnerability Video
• http://goo.gl/A8hCcX
Presentation Premise
• As a regular practice, I allow my students to assess my performance.
• Specifically, in my college communication and English courses, I deliver speeches and share my published writings with students, respectively.
Peer-to-Peer Learning
• To further model assignment expectations, I also share student-generated speech videos and student writings (with their permission, of course).
• It pre-exposes students to the grading rubric that will assess their performance.
• It illustrates the confidence in my own performance.
• Student voices are heard.
• Builds students’ confidence.
• Builds classroom community, i.e., “We’re all in this learning process together.”
ARCS Model of MotivationJ. Keller (1983)
• Attention—arousing interest• Relevance—creating relevance • Confidence—developing an expectancy of
success• Satisfaction—producing satisfaction through
intrinsic/extrinsic rewards
Modeling Expectations
• Because, I am a proponent of modeling, sharing my performances allows me to model the behavioral objectives that I expect my students to ultimately demonstrate.
• I believe that students best perform when expectations are first modeled for them.
Turning the Tables
• Besides, students get a genuine “kick” out of the “tables being turned” where they can ultimately assess their teachers.
Student Engagement
• It’s also very interesting to witness how engaged they are in this section of the lesson.
Naysayers
• Of course, you will have the student whose goal is to give you a “C” or lower regardless of how stellar your performance is.
Lies vs. Truth
• However, the majority of the class will not have “personal axes to grind.”
• Plus, the “get even” students just expose where their intentions lie (no pun intended).
• Their scores just serve as outliers and do not affect the instructor’s median and mode scores.
Who’s the author?
• As a former high school teacher, I remember reading an engaging text to my 9th grade students and them later asking who the author was (I purposefully omitted this notable detail.).
Focus on the Believers
• I casually responded, “Me.”
• The first time, most of the class was amazed!
• Of course, a few skeptics didn’t believe it, but then again, they rarely believed anything.
• Once proven, they later accepted my response as “truth.”
• Similarly, there is a creation, performance, and/or writing in all of us…just waiting to be shared. Have you shared yours lately?
Sharing cont.
• As a college instructor, I am committed to further sharing mine as I instruct my students.
• Please join me and share your writings, performances, and/or creations with your students.
• It will positively change the relationship that you have with them. Guaranteed!
No Guarantees
• OK, well…maybe, there are no guarantees in education.
• Yet, this teaching practice is a safe bet to winning some of your unengaged learners.
Rapport Building
• Dennis Littky (2004), cofounder of the Big Picture Company, a nonprofit educational reform organization, discusses the importance of incorporating the 3 R’s: relationships, relevance, and rigor in the classroom.
Rapport Building cont.
• Also, the teacher has an opportunity to build a better rapport with her class because students value when teachers creatively instruct them (whether they tell us or not).
• Furthermore, students notice and appreciate when hard work goes into innovative lesson planning.
Less Behavioral Problems
• Consequently, they began to see their teacher from a positive vantage point.
• Less behavioral problems also a byproduct of rapport building—a result that any instructor would love to experience.
• Note: Sidebar conversations are often a result of boredom and/or confusion.
Assignment Instructions Example
• See “Self-Introduction Performance” Handout, p. 3
Outline Example
• See “Self-Introduction Outline” Handout, p. 4
Rubric Example
• See “Self-Introduction Speech Evaluation” Handout, p. 5.
Published Writing Examples
• See “Survival via Creative Writing: Remembering the Power of Story” Handout, p. 6. (MCTE: eMET, Fall 2012).
• “I am You/You are I” Handouts, pp. 7-9 (A Young Urban Professional Speaks, 2003).
Animoto Examples
• goo.gl/0zsp3k
• Nearly 30 self-created Animoto videos in the following disciplines:– English– Math– Science– Social Studies– Technology – Writing
Evaluations
Please evaluate this presentation with a word, phrase, and/or paragraph.
http://goo.gl/Yd6Ix6