Connecting with Students
- bobbybarber
- Jul 8, 2015
- 2 min read
I am presenting at FlipCon in Michigan next week. My session topic is "Building Strong Relationships with Students in a Flipped Class." I have always thought I have connected with my students, but have found it hard to put together specific strategies that have worked for me. I recently e-mailed about 20 current and former students to get their thoughts on why we got along so well. The idea came to me when a former student wrote me a random e-mail thanking me for making "being smart cool." He told me that I wasn't the only teacher "that thoroughly understood his subject" or "that had a knack for explaining." He told me that my class was the first class where he didn't feel like he was resented for asking questions or answering questions correctly. The timing of this e-mail was really strange, because I had been struggling with exactly what to present.
The next day I sent out the e-mails and almost every student I wrote got back to me within 24 hours, and this was over 4th of July weekend. This made me feel like I have build strong relationships with my students and also gave me some ideas for my presentation. Here are my 10 favorites:
1. My ability to treat everyone the same, whether it was with respect or "disses", no one escaped "unscathed."
2. My desire to make Millville a better school ("so I can brag about it").
3. "In all honesty, I was afraid of you for the first few weeks of class."
4. "Your class was like stepping into a house with 17 brothers and sisters (you included)."
5. "When I first took calc I was intimidated by you."
6. "You are giving so many silly little high school students ample amounts of opportunities to screen shot embarrassing pics of yourself."
7. "It took me about one week to realize that he is genuinely one of the most hilarious men (I wasn't expecting that from a man who is older than 30)."
8. "It may be because of your mental capacity being equivalent to ours at that time."
9. "Let's see.. at first I thought you were a jerk and your attitude was way too cocky, so I initially felt that the only way to deal with it was to be the best darn student you'll ever have and that would somehow in a way prove you wrong. I quickly learned you were a big old softy who cared about students who cared."
10. "I've heard the horror stories from just about 98% of my friends and was more anxious than ever."
I guess I'm lying about these being my favorites...my real favorites are the ones that came after comments like these that explained why the students really thought we got along so well. I feel so much better prepared for the conference based on these e-mails. I guess it's fitting that I'm flying to Michigan to present a lesson that my students taught me...a real flipped class.
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