Connecting With Students (personally not digitally)
In Mr Guyman's blog "How Spiderman, Washing Windows and a Book About The Beatles Taught Me the Importance of Touchpoints" he tells a great story about he discovered the importance of connecting with his students on a personal level. There is a lot of research that supports Mr. Guyman's story about connecting with a student but it's nice to see a real life story that supports the research. Research in education is valuable but it the real life support of the theoretical research reinforces the research and makes the research real for anyone skeptical of said research.
I am a big fan of technology and I am always looking for ways to integrate it in my classroom to engage and connect with my students, but there's a lot to be said for making that personal connection with students. I am lucky in that a lot of my students who aren't really excited about learning and school are males and most of them just happen to play hockey. Well, I was that student and I still love and play hockey! I had a student this year whose parents told me that he wasn't really a big fan of school and especially reading, that he'd rather be playing hockey. I noticed that during our DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) time he was looking at a book but not really reading it. So, I asked him if he watched TSN and/or if he had a favourite sportscaster. When he said yes, I asked him why he didn't bring in some articles from TSN.ca he looked at me, "I can?". Now I wish I could say he started reading regularly and was totally engaged during DEAR time because that would be a lie. He did however, start bringing in the odd article and reading those. He also started looking for books on hockey to read every once in a while.
What do you do to personally connect with your students? Do you think making that personal connection with students and building a relationship with your students improves their learning and/or makes managing your classroom easier?
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