Seeing the classroom through students' eyes

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Working Paper – Please do not cite without permission

Seeing The Classroom Through Students’ Eyes

Bryan Mascio Harvard Graduate School of Education 13 Appian Way Cambridge, MA 02138 bryan_mascio@mail.harvard.edu

A Teacher Professional Development Induction to Facilitate Social Perspective Taking Joseph McIntyre Harvard Graduate School of Education 13 Appian Way Cambridge, MA 02138

Abstract When teachers struggle to understand what makes a student tick, the teacher-student relationship typically suffers as a result. Social perspective taking – understanding an individual’s thoughts, feelings, and motivations – might serve as an oil to lubricate these social interactions and relationships. In this field experiment, teachers (N=106) in an urban charter network participated in a new social perspective taking induction aimed at understanding their most perplexing students. The induction caused treatment teachers to try harder to understand these students and improved teachers’ perspective of their relationships with students months later. In addition, these students obtained higher course competency scores (akin to grades) than their control counterparts. This study supplies empirical connective tissue for the theoretical links between social perspective taking and teacher-student relationships.

Hunter Gehlbach Gevirtz Graduate School of Education #3113 University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9490 hgehlbach@education.ucsb.edu

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“No significant

Introduction

learning can

Few educators doubt that strong teacher-student relationships (TSRs) can bolster learning alongside a broad array of other student

occur without a significant

outcomes. But what happens when teachers’ relationships with their students are downright challenging? Even the most skilled teachers struggle to connect with at least one or two students. Anecdotally, on

relationship.” – Dr. James Comer

teachers’ frustrations with the “10% of students who take up 90% of their time” deplete much of their psychological energy. In this article, we describe the results of an intervention designed to change teachers’


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