Dr. Jeffrey Allen Faunce Medaille College

1. It's All About Relationships: How Do Student Teachers Conceptualize Their Relationships With Their Students? Dr. Jeffrey Allen Faunce Medaille College

2. Why Relationships? • “The Three-legged Stool” • What: Content • How: Pedagogy • Who: Student • Students in general • Your students

3. Why Relationships?

4. What does the research say • “The development of the right kind of relationship in the classroom could make teachers more effective and pupils better able to develop their potentialities.” Leavitt, 1959 • “Student-teacher relationships are a key feature of school life.” Pomeroy, 1999 • “In the classroom, students who feel accepted by their teachers are more likely to do what the teachers ask of them (e.g., assignments) and less likely to do things that make the teachers’ lives difficult (e.g., disrupt class).” Morganett, 1991

5. What does the research say • Nel Noddings “Ethic of Caring:” 4 components: modeling, dialogue, practice and confirmation Noddings, 1984, 1988, 1992

6. Why Student Teachers? • Importance of student teaching • Culminating experience • Closest parallel to full time professional teaching • Access: Medaille College

7. What does the research say? • “Student teaching: The Keystone Experience” Fallin and Rose, 2000 • “It is in student teaching that pre-service teachers practice skills of teaching and learn to design and implement curricular activities and to get along with student of various physical abilities and cultural differences.” Chepyator-Thompson & Liu, 2003

8. What did I hope to understand? • How do student teachers describe their relationships with their students? • What factors influence the ways in which they develop relationships with their students? • What impact do their relationships with their students have on their teaching practices?

9. What did I hope to understand? • Where do teachers learn to establish relationships with their students? • What can we do, as a School of Education and/or as teacher preparation professionals to help pre-service teachers with these relationships?

10. How did I hope to understand this? • Participants • Undergraduate student teachers at Medaille College • “Traditional” students • “Second career” students • Parents • Names provided by faculty members

11. Prior thought about relationships before student teaching • Findings: • Several participants had thought about the relationships they wanted to establish • Descriptions • Balance between friendly and respectful • Safe • Trust

12. Student teacher’s positive perceptions of their relationships with students • Findings: • Every participant described relationship as positive • Descriptions • Good • Respectful • Fun • Friendly • Based on Trust • Evidence • Interactions between students and student teacher • Reaction to the student teacher when substitute teacher was in classroom • Treatment of the student teacher when teaching • Ability to joke and have fun with students in class and outside classroom • Students sharing personal information with student teacher

13. Noddings’ modeling occurring in the classroom • Findings: • Student teachers felt they modeled a positive way of interacting with their students • Evidence: • Playing “Get to Know You” games and others with students • Joking with students to shape their behavior • Greetings outside the classroom when students were entering • “Daytime Family”

14. Noddings’ dialogue in the classroom • Findings: • Several student teachers believed that their caring was illustrated through talking with students • Evidence • Students sharing personal information with student teachers • Student teachers sharing personal information with their students • Conversations informal settings (lunch, recess) • Discussion in conjunction with Social Studies curriculum of what it means to be a good citizen

15. Impact of relationships on academic performance • Findings: • Several student teachers believed their relationships improved their students’ academic performance • Evidence: • Students who felt a connection with their student teacher wanted to “impress” that student teacher. • Students showing more initiative with sharing their work with student teacher • Students more apt to volunteer

16. Impact of relationships on behavior of kids • Findings: • As relationships grew between student teacher and students, students spent more time on task • Impact on students’ interactions between each other • Possible impact on students’ behavior in the future • Evidence • A boy who would often talk out of turn began to focus more in class • “Little Devil” cried at the end of the placement

17. Impact of prior experience on establishing relationships • Findings: • Experiences with prior teachers impacted how student teachers related to their students • Experience working with children helped many student teachers relate to students in a positive way • Relationships with parents influenced how relationships were built with students • Experiences as parents influenced how relationships were built with students • Evidence • Student teachers wanting to emulate teachers that they had worked with as students • Student teachers learned through baby-sitting, day care, volunteering how to interact with kids • “The way I was raised” • Experience volunteering in children's’ schools, meeting children's’ friends

18. Recommendations/Conclusions • More emphasis needs to be placed on the relationships between teachers and students in teacher preparation programs • Pre-service teachers need to be given more frequent, focused, supervised opportunities to work with students early in and throughout their teacher preparation programs.

19. Recommendations/Conclusions • Student teaching evaluations should allow for observations of student teachers and students interacting in settings outside the classroom/lesson plan situation • All teachers need to be more cognizant of their relationships with students and the impact those relationships have on students • Academic • Behavior

20. Why? Remind teachers and teacher preparation professionals of the importance of human contact and human interaction