Communication in the Classroom

In order to create a good and inviting classroom environment where everyone feels safe and wants to participate, we need to make sure that we are fostering an environment of good communication between everyone.  You need to build a group identity, and ensure that the teacher has ways of getting to know their students better.

Some ways to foster positive communication in the classroom is to hold Goal-Setting Conferences. What are those you say? Well I will tell you... They are basically a one-on-one meeting with each of your students.  You get to have a conversation with them about progress they are making in a certain area, and you get to set some new goals with them as well.  This helps the student take some ownership in their learning, and also gives them some time to "talk to teacher," which let's face it... if we don't schedule something like this, we may never get to have some one-on-one time with some of our students that are more quiet and reserved.  It is true that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, but we want to make sure that we are making time for all of our students. Even the ones who may never ask for anything. When students are able to feel safe talking to us, then we can branch that out to small groups.  Get the conversation going with in your guided reading groups, that is a good place to start, and then eventually (and hopefully) all of our students will feel safe talking in front of the whole class at any time.  Communication is key to any good relationship, and we can definitely have good relationships in our classrooms.