Ensuring Student Engagement Through Building Meaningful Relationships

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Ensuring Student Engagement Through Building
Meaningful Relationships

• Pam Dixon M.Ed.
• Matt Stephen Ed.D.
• Arkansas Tech University
• Center for Leadership and Learning

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SWIMMING WITH THE EELS? CAN YOU SPOT A DRUM?
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Lets take a walk into the past

• Can you remember your K-12 teachers?
• Is there one special teacher you will never
  forget?
• Why is that?

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• Are there teachers you have forgotten?
• Why?

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• IT IS ALL ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS
• Students are more likely to be engaged in
  learning
• when meaningful relationships exist between
• them and their teachers

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ASCD Essential Question

• How does your community ensure the students are
  engaged and supported?

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• We Can Ensure Student Engagement Through Building
  Meaningful Relationships

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C
Teacher
Student
School Leader/ Support
Parent
Community
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School Relationship

• Student ? Teacher
• Student ? School Leader/Support
• Student ? Parent
• Student ? Community
• Teacher ? Parent
• Teacher ? School Leader/Support
• Teacher ? Community
• Parent ? School Leader/Support
• Parent ? Community
• Community ? School Leader/Support
• Student ? Student
• Teacher ? Teacher
• School Leader/Support ? School Leader/Support

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• A relationship-building plan will not happen
• on its own.
• It must be purposely and thoughtfully created by
  the entire school community.
• Be writing be planning right now!
• (Clifton Taulbert, June 12, 2012)

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Steps to Building Meaningful Relationships on a
School-Wide Basis

• Revisit school vision and mission.
• Needs Assessment Pose questions and hold
  informal and formal conversations with internal
  and external publics.
• Form PLCs for action research.
• Determine needed actions and assign leadership
  roles.
• Write relationship-building activities into the
  campus plan.

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Step Activity

• Select a relationship area
• On a footprint, write one step toward building
  meaningful relationships
• Pin it to the wall under the relationship area

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Teachers

• Teacher ? Student
• Classroom Climate
• Mutual trust and positive interactions between
  teachers and students
• Enlarging Process
• Nurturing Atmosphere

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Classroom and School Climate

• I have come to the frightening conclusion,
• I am the decisive element in the classroom.
• It is my personal approach that creates the
  climate.
• It is my daily mood that makes the weather.
• As a teacher I possess tremendous power to make a
  childs life miserable or joyous.
• I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of
  inspiration.
• I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.
• In all situations, it is my response that decide
  whether a crisis
• Will be escalated or de-escalated, and a child
  humanized or de-humanized.
• Between Teacher and Child
• Haim G. Ginott (1922-73)
• Teacher, child psychologist and psychotherapist

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Discussion

• How do Ginotts ideas translate to
• all areas of school?

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Based upon John C. Maxwells Enlarging Process

• See the students potential
• Cast a vision for the students future
• Tap into the students passion
• Address the students character flaws
• Focus on the students strengths

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• The foundation of learning is to love
• those you teach.
• Stacey Bess
• June 12, 2012

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• How many teachers on your campus are masters at
  building relationships with students?
• Can they teach others to master
  relationship-building?

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Nurturing Students

• If you look around, youll discover that there
  are people in your life who want to be fed with
  encouragement, recognition, security, and hope.
  That process is called nurturing, and its a need
  of every human being.
• John Maxwell, Becoming a Person of Influence

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Nurturing

• A nurturer is a giver and a lifter.
• When nurtured, students receive
• Positive self-worth
• Sense of Belonging
• Perspective
• Feeling of Significance
• Hope
• John Maxwell, Becoming a Person of Influence

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• The Exchange Principle
• Leave your place and visit their place
• John Maxwell, Winning with People

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From Student to Teacher A Love Poem

•  
• There is a room of which I know
• that always has a fire aglow.
• In it sits a chair all plush.
• The sounds within are all a hush.

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  There are blankets to make me cozy and
warm and a bolted door to keep out harm. The book
on the table contains a happy ending. It makes my
time well-worth spending.   There is a cup of hot
chocolate by the chair, and the smell of fresh
baked bread in the air. How long I stay, I need
not worry because time slows down, there is no
hurry.  
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• This room is in my mind.
• The times I enter it are few.
• I am mostly in this room I find
• when I am close to you.

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• Teacher ? Parent
• Mission to Serve
• Conflict Resolution
• Stress Relief Strategies

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• Teacher ? Teacher
• Collaboration
• PLCs/Action Research

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AFFECTIVE DOMAIN (SCHOOL COUNSELORS)

• 1. Everyone is important. Our words are so
  important!
• 2. We have the greatest school in the State.
• 3. Model and teach empathy

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• Teaching Empathy in the Classroom
• http//www.wimp.com/homeroomteacher/

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Counselors- eyes and ears of school

• Counselor ? Teachers
• Affective Domain in the classroom
• (i.e. teaching empathy)
• Counselor ? Student
• Counselor ? Community
• Counselor as major influence in teaching the
  affective domain to students

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Administrators

• No relationship in a school has a greater effect
  on the quality of life in that school than the
  relationships between the teachers and the
  principal.
• Roland Barth, Improving Schools from Within
  Teachers, Parents and Principals Can Make the
  Difference
• Administrator ? Teachers/Staff
• Shared Leadership
• Shared Mission/Vision
• Building Positive School Culture
• Building Trust

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School ? Community

• Inviting Culture
• Two-way Communication
• Shared Decision-making

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Community

• Site-Based Decision-Making
• PTA/PTO
• Volunteers
• Business Partnership
• Tutors
• Mentors
• School-Community Activities Rituals, Traditions
  and Ceremonies

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• Five Traits of Leaders That Build Meaningful
  Relationships
• Humble Service
• Integrity
• Developing Others
• Shared Leadership
• Inspiring Vision

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Curriculum Leaders

• PREP
• Problem Solving
• Real-World Learning Activities
• Entrepreneurial Skills
• People Skills
• Shifting Gears Content to Process Ian Jukes and
  Ted McCain
• The InfoSavvy Group and Cystar, 2005

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Steps to Building Meaningful Relationships on a
School-Wide Basis

• Revisit school vision and mission.
• Needs Assessment Pose questions and hold
  informal conversations with internal and external
  publics.
• Form PLCs for action research.
• Determine needed actions and assign leadership
  roles.
• Write relationship-building activities into the
  campus plan.

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Pay-offs to Developing Relationship-Building
Activities

• Everyone has a deeper understanding of the school
  vision/mission.
• A school culture is shaped that reaches out to
  everyone.
• Students feel valued and supported, and they are
  more engaged in their learning.
• Increased trust, buy-in, and support are given by
  community members.

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• We are not saying that developing a
  relationship-building plan is going to be easy.
• but it is worth doing it right!

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• For a copy of the PowerPoint,
• go to
• www.servantleadersineducation.com
• and click on
• Building Meaningful Relationships.

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• Door Prizes