Читать книгу Assessing with Respect - Starr Sackstein - Страница 18

Teacher-student relationships aren't the only ones that matter. The connection and collaboration of students with their peers is also essential. The way we allow students to learn speaks to our values, and building a culture in which students treat one another with respect, dignity, and empathy will further build the trust needed to help learning thrive.

If we want students to trust one another—which we do, because trust is an essential element of collaboration and group work, peer review and feedback, and classroom discussion—we need to make sure they know how to behave and interact with one another. In her book Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain, Zaretta Hammond (2015) discusses how we can create collaborative environments with equitable learning time by using protocols that ensure that all voices are heard and none are prized more than others. It's not enough to tell students to respect one another; we must take a deeper look at how we form collaborations and then make sure that everyone in these groups participates in the learning.

You can facilitate this kind of equity by co-constructing with students the success criteria for what respect looks like in a classroom. Ask students to reflect on their ability to adhere to the criteria and why doing so matters. Provide feedback that helps them grow in their ability to demonstrate respect.

As you and your students are getting to know each other at the beginning of the school year, allow students to form their own partnerships. Note whom students gravitate toward and what the learning looks like when partners are together. Are these successful partnerships? How do you know? If they aren't, how could you improve the partnerships?

Students deserve to be involved in classroom decision making (recall that responsible decision making is another SEL competency), and so they should be clear on their options and how their choices will affect future learning. Additionally, they are going to be playing a big supporting role in the learning and the assessing of themselves and their peers, so they need to trust one another as much as they trust you, if not more.