Case Study 2: Planning and teaching for effective learning

As my teaching environment sits outside of the main course curriculum’s across the university I get a huge spread of students coming to me for support, oftentimes these individuals will only come by for one or two sessions (either workshops, drop in’s or just to use the equipment). This means that I only have a short period with individual students and as their learning is hugely affected by their relationship with their teacher (Roorda D. L., Koomen H. M., Spilt J. L., Oort F. J. 2011) I want to improve my skills at immediate connection making and build a successful relationship with students within these first couple of meetings.

“When we feel respected we are able to bring our whole selves to our work and our learning” Liz Bunting and Vikki Hill (2024).This currently plays out in my practice where I give individuals the chance to speak with me individually about their own ideas and projects. By doing this, I find student’s confidence in their own work increases, I believe this is because they feel valued as an individual due to me giving them the time to speak and explain themselves within our first meeting. This factor, the spoken words cover less than 50% of what has been communicated between the two of us during a face to face meeting with body language and non-verbal communication making up the rest. According to Bambaeeroo F, Shokrpour N (2017), there is an obvious correlation between student success and teacher’s body language/non-verbal communication such as the use of intentional inclination. This is something I plan to impalement in the first meetings I have with students by raising my voice at the end of sentences, Chris Caswell in video Body Language for Reinforcing Learning (2012) explains how this invites students in to share ideas and engage further. Another potential way to create a positive interaction with students would be to lean in towards them during conversation. This should be done while carefully monitoring the student’s body reaction. If they pull away this may mean they feel threatened, but if not this is often a positive sign of interest R. Phillips (2012). This is something I am going to actively start taking not of and utilising within my interactions to create a more welcoming space for students.

Another factor within this is that students often expect me to remember them and their projects after the first meeting which is great as it means they felt valued and like an individual with unique memorable qualities and concepts, however unfortunately this is somewhere that I fall down. I meet many new students each day and find it easy to engage with them there and then, but remembering each individual’s name and project can be very difficult for me. Therefore I will often have to ask them again for their name or a brief synopsis of their project in order to remember them, which I believe could be considered disrespectful. Findings from Katelyn M. Cooper, Brian Haney, Anna Krieg and Sara E. Brownell (2017) suggest that when tutors know student’s names the student’s perceive that the teacher cares about their learning, and also that the name learning helps build classroom community. This name-learning concept is explored further in my blog post: Before We Even Started and is something I plan to find techniques and way to improve my name learning and remembering within my teaching practice to improve the respect I am giving to each individual student.



Bibliography:

• Roorda D. L., Koomen H. M., Spilt J. L., Oort F. J. (2011). The influence of affective teacher–student relationships on students’ school engagement and achievement: a meta-analytic approach. Rev. Educ. Res. 81, 493–529. doi: 10.3102/0034654311421793
• Bunting L, Hill V (2024)Belonging Through Compassion Available at: https://belongingthroughcompassion.myblog.arts.ac.uk/relationships/ (Accessed: 18.04.24)
• Bambaeeroo F, Shokrpour N (2017) ‘The impact of teachers’ non-verbal communication on success in teaching’ J Adv Med Educ Prof. 2017 Apr;5(2): 51-59 Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5346168/ (Accessed: 18.04.24)
• Body Language for Reinforcing Learning (2012) Produced by Maverick Television Accessed: https://video-alexanderstreet-com.arts.idm.oclc.org/watch/body-language-for-reinforcing-learning
• R. Philips (2012) Body Language: It’s What You Don’t Say That Matters Minesota, Capstone
• Brownell S E, Cooper K M, Haney B, Krieg A,  (2017) ‘What’s in a Name? The Importance of Students Perceiving That an Instructor Knows Their Names in a High-Enrollment Biology Classroom’ CBE Life Sci Educ. 2017 Spring; 16(1): ar8. Available at: doi: 10.1187/cbe.16-08-0265