Build a Positive Climate in the Classroom

Creating a positive climate in your classroom will allow your students to feel comfortable, safe and engaged. This climate give the students a special environment to learn.

Positive climate is a combination of classroom culture and teacher leadership. The classroom culture include many factors like teacher-student interactions, class room structure, Social and Emotional Safety, positive behavior management techniques and community building. Also, teachers play an important role to build a positive climate. Teachers bring cultural understanding and self-awareness to the classroom and they are a social justice leader. Being a teacher leader in positive climate means embracing the opportunity for ongoing reflection and growth.

As Robert Marzano specified in his book The Art and Science of Teaching “Arguably the quality of the relationships teachers have with students is the keystone of effective management and perhaps even the entirety of teaching.” (Marzano, 2007) the relationship teacher-student is fundamental to create a positive climate in the classroom. Know your students, build a sense of community and use a positive teacher language among others are the keystone in this purpose. To know more about teacher-student interaction, we recommend see the presentation about this topic in the following link: http://prezi.com/_dut7uxolfrn/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

In a positive climate of learning the structure of the classroom is student centered. Classrooms reflect the multicultural backgrounds of students and showcase the diversity of our society. For instance, some walls could show pictures of students or short phrases in different languages that students speak. The norms and expectations are clear, just as the students are encourage to participate. Also, in the class student and teachers use gender sing gender-neutral practices. A positive classrooms environment represent the diversity, the positives relationships, promote communication and dialogue between teachers and students.

Social-emotional learning, respect and safety are as important as literacy and critical thinking skills in positive learning environment. Students need to feel both physically and emotionally safe to learn. Teachers should include in the curriculum teaching of social-emotional skills, bullying prevention and community building. In a positive climate in the classroom, students understand and appreciate differences, also they know different forms to solve problems and conflicts with others.

Discipline and behavior management are central to positive classroom culture. Behavior management practices should support safe and build community. The discipline problems could use as an opportunity of growth. A positive behavior management reflect fairness, equity and cultural awareness.

Teachers are the role model to build a positive climate in the classroom. They need to develop skills and attitudes to build bridges between cultures, promoting empathy, flexibility, listening without judgment, appreciation for multiple perspectives and cross-cultural communication. Culturally aware teachers model how we can build a positive climate.   

Teachers can be social justice leaders modeling proactive responses to bias, discrimination, exclusion and bullying. They can sends the message that student safety is a priority and we need to speaking up and responding. For example, teachers can share live experiences that help students to learn their active role to build a positive environment of learning.

Building a positive climate in the classroom requires reflection and steady growth by teachers. Teachers can continue learning strategies participating in professional development activities, joining groups of study or research. Also, evaluate and follow up the strategies implemented in the classroom by teachers is a great opportunity to learn a build more effective responses. Teachers can create alliances that support new strategies, for example with NGO or governmental entities.

In conclusion, build a positive climate in the classroom require an action in the classroom and a commitment of teachers to ensure a comfortable, safe and engaged environment to learn.

By Jaime Solano Cardoso

Special Education Referral

This post includes an interview about the RTI process and a reflection about it.

Interview to School Psychologist of Oyster Adams Bilingual School Primary Campus about the special education referral. http://oysteradamsbilingual.org/ 

• How is a student identified for special education referral (Response to intervention-RTI)?

 All educators in the school and parents can refer a student to start a Response to Intervention-RTI process. Then, the team of educators (problem solving team) looks at the data of the student who has been identified as struggling via the screening process, and finds the gaps between current performance and expected performance. The team discusses why this gap occurring.

• Who takes responsibility for the progress of the child before and after the referral?

RTI is not a “program” or “service” outside of the general education classroom. Rather RTI requires all educators in the school (teachers, special educators, counselors, social workers, administrators, coaches, etc.) to provide students with what they need to make progress.

• What is the school administration's directive for special education?

RTI is an approach to instruction that clearly identifies the specific need of all students and develops different levels of interventions to meet these need. At Oyster Adams, level 2 + 3 of RTI are sometimes referred to the TAG program (Targeted Academic Growth). TAG is managed by me (school psychologist, TAG lead and administrators, who in turn, work closely with TAG and classroom teachers.

Once the cause of the problem has been identified by the problem solving team, the team selects one or two measurable objectives that are likely to close the gap. Base on the objectives, the team need to decide what intervention will be provided, how often, who will provide the intervention, where will be provided, and how will it be determined if the students is responding to the intervention. During the intervention/s TAG and classroom teacher will be careful to monitor student response to intervention.

A student who was flagged by universal screening could continue in Tier 1, with some modifications to differentiate instruction, or move to Tier 2. The goal of Tier 2 intervention is to remediate academic skill deficits with the idea that, in doing so, students will be successful in the Tier 1 program without support. If the students not respond Tier 2 intervention, he may need more intense support and move to Tier 3. Likewise, students who have received Tier 3 intervention respond well and be moved to Tier 2 or Tier 1. The movement across tiers is fluid and should always be made throughout the decision-making process.

• What is the level of parent involvement in referral process and special education?

Parents are involved during the whole process; they always receive the information of the process. Sometimes, the team provide activities for the parents to work in home.

Interviewed by Jaime Solano

Reflection:

After the interview I was able to understand that the process of RTI support the teachers with specific students. A group of specialist in the school help the teacher to find the best way to help the student. Sometimes, we as teachers have limited vision of our students and it is difficult to find new approaches to support students with needs, therefore the groups of persons involved in the RTI process provide a new perspective that present more possibilities.

During the whole process of RTI, the data and follow up is very important. All records of the students play and important role in the decisions because the data shows the needs. Also, the data is needed in the whole process, in the beginning to identify the problem and then to monitor the progress.

The participation of the parents in the whole process is crucial. The parents have to be informed about the child and the interventions planed. The parents can take an active role in the process and support the team to find solutions and implement the plan, parents can continue working with the child at home and support him/her during the process.

Finally, I would like to said that the RTI process might seem difficult and complicated, but it is very useful for students and teachers. This process probably needs a commitment by the teacher, but this will help the students.