Student Contributor: Yulianna Godinez
This is a great way to check in with your students and take into consideration to their lives outside of school.
This is a supportive phase, validation strategy. Every Monday at the beginning of class, after silent reading and before the 1st lesson, my mentor goes around the room and asks everyone if they would like to share one good thing that happened during the weekend aloud for the class to hear, even if it’s as simple as eating takeout; no answer is too simple. My mentor and I will often add onto what the students say to make what they say more interesting and so that we validate everyone’s comments and occurrences going on outside of school. Just as much as they’re a student in our classroom, they’re also still children who enjoy spending time with family and friends. When this strategy is performed at the beginning of the day, it lights up the mood and vibes of the classroom and eases children into starting their day and their learning.
I placed this strategy in the supportive phase because this strategy is meant to support the students’ learning through validating their emotions and taking an interest in their lives. I want to build my students up and encourage them to confide in me and feel secure in the classroom so that they can learn to the best of their abilities. This is not a corrective strategy to fix something, nor is it a strategy to prevent something from happening. This strategy supports their learning by encourage prosocial behaviors.
I would say that this strategy coincides with the student-directed & collaborative and the collaborative & teacher directed theories of influence. I believe so because within these theories, they teach students how to participate actively and effectively within the classroom which then translates into the real-world. These theories also support the strategy and idea of building civility within the students by using the teachers’ rules and expectations to hold the students accountable and to standard that encourages them to gradually grow into active students willing to step out of their comfort zone.
More Information –
Tool Source: My mentor teacher.
