Article | Classroom Strategies for Building Relationships with Students
Building a relation is a two-way process; it requires people to open up to each other and share their feelings, without worrying about being judged by the other person. It requires establishing trust. When you know more about a person, you begin to trust them, like them, and believe in them. You become receptive towards them, seek their advise and approval on different matters, and make efforts to do things for them. Interactions based on trust and caring are valuable.
By building a rapport with students, teachers can take their value of teaching to a totally different level. Building a rapport with students is not something that can be done in the first class and should not be done as an exercise. The first step should be to establish a comfortable learning environment, and then look at ways to involve students in conversation, and learn about their personal background, likes, dislikes, and interests.
Needless to say that the sharing process begins with the teacher. When teachers open up to students and talk about their own likes, dislikes, and interests, they allow students to see them as a person and not just as a teacher. Students realize that teachers are people just like them and thus they can relate to teachers better.
We’ve put together some resources and videos that describe classroom strategies for getting to know your students and building a rapport with them. Not all strategies will work for your students, and you may need to tweak some to suit your class profile. It is important to note that strategies serve as tools and techniques to help you collect data about your students, the key to creating a strong relationship lies with you, in your heart.
Article: Learning Students’ Names Quickly: This resource provides strategies for remembering student names.
Article: Top 5 Ways to Get to Know Your Students: This resource lists strategies to engage students in class and develop a rapport with the teacher and their peers.
Article: The First Day of Class: This article addresses concerns by listing teacher FAQs and providing answers.
Article: Fabulous First-Day Ideas: In this resource, teachers from across grades share innovative ideas of how they learn more about their students.
Article: Developing Students’ Trust: The Key to a Learning Partnership: In this article, Ben Johnson, consultant, author and instructional learning coach writes about the importance of building trust with students. At the end of the article, viewers share their thoughts about the same.
Video: Building Relationships within the Classroom (PBIS)
This video showcases classroom best practices for building relationships with students.
Video: Teachers on Getting to Know your Students
In this video, teachers talk about the strategies they use in class to learn more about their students.
Video: One Teacher’s Secret to Success
In this TeachingChannel video, Ms. Abdul-Wajid talks about how her passion for teaching helps her connect with her students.
In this video, Brian Van Dyck explains how modeling passion helps him connect with his students.
Video: Build Relationships: Teach More Than ‘Just Math’
In this video, Marlo Warburton explains how she consciously makes an effort to maker her students important in her math class.
Video: Body Language: Creating Bonds
This video demonstrates how body language can help teachers engage students and create a rapport with them.
Video: My Best Advice (After 34 Years of Teaching)
In this video, Stephen Rutherford explains the importance of teaching from your heart.