Day Sixteen

Today was the start of a week of full control teaching. The day went smoothly with no major difficulties which would also be a result from already having a couple of days full control. Earlier in a number of my blog posts I reflected on how interaction with students builds relationship and therefore aids learning. This relationship is something that is key to teaching and is covered in Graduating Teacher Standard Six. But what makes this relationship even more interesting is how cultural factors have an effect. In this school I previously mentioned how some teachers interact with their students on quite a fun/informal/cheerful/ teasing way. Earlier in the weeks I was interested in this relationship model so took deliberate opportunities to have fun with the students. Then over the past couple weeks I have continued to build this relationship with my students. Being full control today showed me a bit of the result of this relationship. Particularly with the students that I have built this fun relationship with I found management way easier. But also in general most of my students were really well behaved and related really well. During the day I was able to continue to have ‘fun’ with some students by teasing them but then was able to quickly draw them back to focusing on their learning. I am beginning to really see how this informal relationship is really foundational to building a connection with these students. I am interested to see how this furthermore develops as the week progresses. Another relationship/behavioural tool that I used throughout the day today was positive reinforcement. I have used this earlier in the week but didn’t find it very effective. Whilst today I found that it worked really well and I was able to manage behaviour quite easily. I think that a connection needs to be made to the effectiveness of this reinforcement and the level of my relationship with students now. As students have a better relationship with me I think they are beginning to care more about what I think they are doing and how they behave. Again this draws back to the foundational importance of building a positive relationship in order for effective learning to occur.