1.4 Creating a Positive Environment for Learning

As part of the planning process, you will consider how you will intentionally support and engage students in learning through development of a positive learning environment. You may think that the classroom environment has already been set up by your cooperating teacher and you can do little to change that during your introductory courses, methods courses, and even during student teaching. However, creating a positive environment for learning refers not to the arrangement of desks, learning centers, or even what is displayed on the walls of the classroom.

While the arrangement of the classroom is very important, creating a positive environment for learning refers to how you will

• develop rapport with students,
• demonstrate respect for students, and
• engage students in learning.

In creating a positive environment for learning you will be weaving together the art and science of teaching. You will interact with students based on knowledge of your students and their particular strengths, needs, and interests and will select instructional activities based on your knowledge of content and research-based effective practice. The art and science of teaching can be demonstrated in your rapport with students, your demonstration of respect for them, and in your sequence of instructional activities you select to engage students in learning.

Your plans for demonstrating rapport, respect, and engagement will be identified in the steps of your instructional sequence.

Rapport

Kathryn Mitchell Pierce (1993) said, “learning floats on a sea of talk” and noted that listening closely to what students are saying provides a window on learning. Rapport refers to your conversations and interactions with students. In demonstrating rapport you demonstrate interest in your students and build a sense of community with students in your classroom (Kohn, 1996). Calling students by name, learning about their interests and goals, making eye contact with students, and being enthusiastic about your work with them are some examples of demonstrating rapport (Sullo, 2007; Erwin, 2004; Apple & Beane, 1995). Teacher rapport is often associated with authenticity. Johnson and LaBelle (2017) found that authentic teaching is perceived when teachers are viewed as approachable, attentive, capable and passionate.

Respect

Demonstrating respect for students creates a feeling of trust that is part of a safe environment for learning, one in which the brain is ready to learn (Sousa, 2011). Respect is shown through effective questioning strategies, providing time for topics of interest to students, and by recognizing and then responding to where students are at in the learning process. Calling on all students also demonstrates respect. It is also important to foster mutual respect among students in your classroom. Respect goes beyond the golden rule and politeness. When discussing instances of being respected by teachers, students identified the teachers' need to build relationships with them through culturally sensitive teaching and demonstrating care for their personal lives and academic success (Singer & Audley, 2017). 

Engagement

Talk is also involved in fostering engagement in that content and learning strategies are elaborated through productive talk (Lawson & Lawson, 2013; Finn & Zimmer, 2012; Shanklin, 2006; Barnes, 1976). You will want to elicit students’ understanding and build on their responses to go beyond surface-level knowledge. At the same time, you will seek to foster interaction among students in a collaborative learning process.

Engagement also involves having your students involved in scaffolded learning tasks that ensure they are mastering requisite skills needed to meet the overall objective(s) of your lesson. Remember, however, that intellectual engagement is more than participation in learning tasks. Consider how grouping strategies, all-student response techniques; higher-order thinking strategies; interactive discussion in which students respond to each other as well as to you in order to reason, interpret, synthesize, and evaluate information, authentic application of content; and varied response strategies (speaking, writing, acting, drawing, sculpting, and demonstrating) can engage students to think deeply about lesson content and demonstrate their learning (Kolb, Boyatzis, & Mainemelis, 2000; Kolb, 1984; Gardner, 1983, 1999, 2000, 2003). Consider how engagement activities can be used to deepen and extend students’ understanding of lesson content.