It is so important for teachers to give their students a chance to grow as learners in the classroom, but sometimes teachers don’t know how to do this. This is something that I want to do in my classroom, but despite all that I’ve learned, I am still not sure how to accomplish this. I read an article from TeachThought on Twitter this week about how to promote a self-directed classroom culture in the classroom that told me exactly what I can do. There is nothing on this list that seems difficult or time-consuming, and many of the ideas are things that I already plan to do in my classroom. After reading the article, I have much more confidence in my ability to create a classroom culture that will help my students learn.
The first tip for a self-directed classroom culture is to make the classroom a safe place to fail. Failure is what leads to real learning; without it, learning doesn’t happen. But most people, including me, are afraid to fail. This fear of failure is what prevents us from achieving our goals. I don’t want my students to be limited. I don’t want them to be afraid to fail.
So one thing I would like to do is to introduce a Weekly FAIL (first attempt in learning) to my classroom. This would be a lesson that I want to teach about reading or writing or it can be something that a student teaches the class about something they tried in their own reading or writing. Or maybe I won’t even limit this lesson to reading and writing and let students show others what they are doing to learn something new and how they are failing at first. My hope is that this activity would help students to overcome the negative connotations of the word fail and learn to accept failure as a part of their learning journey.
Other tips that I like that are similar to each other are give your students a voice and don’t impose limitations. To me, the first tip is basically saying to let your students choose what they do in the classroom. This is very important to me personally. I’ve always loved school and I always completed all assignments because I wanted a good grade, but there were times when I had to write a paper that I either knew nothing about or didn’t care about. This ended up causing a lot of frustration for me and might even be part of the reason I don’t like to write now.
The second tip about no limits is also great. The article gives the example of having students write as much as they can on a topic. I’ve never liked the minimum page or word count; teachers that make it as long as it needs to be were always my favorite. But I think I will use “write as much as you can” because there are absolutely no limits on that. “As long as it needs to be” just doesn’t seem to encourage students to push themselves in their writing.
Finally, the tip that I think will be hardest for me to achieve but will help me be a better teacher is to let go of the idea that a student’s success reflects on you. If I do not get emotionally involved in my students’ success, I will be able to be more supportive of them when they fail and will not be as frustrated if they don’t do as well as I had hoped.
I know this will be hard for me because I like to do well, but I just need to remember that my students are the ones who are learning, not me. For them to really learn, they need to do it their way, not mine. Students need to want to learn; if they don’t want that and don’t do the work, then it won’t matter if I am the best teacher or the absolute worst teacher ever. As long as I do what I know is best for students, then I will be a successful teacher. And as a successful teacher, I can help my students be successful students but I can’t be successful for them.
This article on classroom culture has so many great tips for teachers and I’ve definitely learned a lot about what I can do in my classroom. The culture of a classroom has a huge impact on students and learning, and I think many times teachers forget this. I really want to have a classroom culture that allows students to grow as learners. I want them to feel empowered in my class and realize that learning is fun. I want them to know that they can do anything as long as they work hard and try. I want my classroom culture to help students grow as learners and I want it to be a place of real learning. My classroom will be a place where the teacher and students work together, fail together, and learn together. This way, we will all succeed together.
livetoread08 