Getting to Know You 7th Grade

Hindered past video screens, fluctuating schedules, and wellness regulations, teachers are up against the odds this school yr when information technology comes to getting to know their students.

"It'southward hard to really get to know your students through a webcam," @mark_bevacqua wrote on Twitter, while @cheri_cheralex shared her struggles of seeing students in masks or "with eyes merely."

While get-to-know-you lot activities are typically earmarked for the first weeks of school, they shouldn't end there, say educators and researchers.

Whether it'due south that they love to play baseball game, take three brothers, or enjoy writing or photography, celebrating your students' unique experiences and identities tin bolster connections that keep them engaged and performing improve in school. Students who accept a deeper sense of cocky—and purpose—are also improve able to define their goals and stay focused on pursuing them, concluded a 2014 report from David Yeager, Angela Duckworth, and colleagues.

Nosotros collected an array of class exercises from interviews with teachers, online resources, and our archives that will assistance students develop greater self-sensation and purpose. These insights can also give you lot a better sense of who they are, so you tin exist responsive to their interests—even if you're separated past screens or masks.

Reflecting on Experiences: 'Laws of Life' Essays

In the early 2000s, educators in an urban, high-poverty commune in New Jersey gave their centre and high school students an interesting essay assignment: Write nigh the values and principles that guide your life.

The seemingly pocket-sized action, called "Laws of Life," is based on the work of philanthropist John Templeton, and it turned into a much bigger projection that helped students develop a stronger sense of self, purpose, and possibility for the future, co-ordinate to Maurice Elias, a psychology professor at Rutgers University. The project has since been replicated all over the world.

To run the assignment in your course, Elias recommends asking students to reflect on their by—in and out of school—and the experiences and people that fabricated them who they are. From there, have students discern key characteristics that have influenced their lives and and so arts and crafts an essay—or create a video or other multimedia content—focused on the "laws" or principles that drive them.

Question prompts like "Who do you admire? Listing three of their beauteous traits" and "Depict an incident or event from which you learned a lesson 'the hard way'" can help guide students. Periodically throughout the year, have students refer back to their essays to reflect on what they wrote and ask themselves, "What's changed?" and "What'due south stayed the same?"

Exploring Identity—and Perceptions Most It: Identity Charts

To get to know her students and ensure that they felt seen in her classroom, center school teacher Shana White created a lesson to help them explore their identities. First, White set a foundation for discussion past defining identity and explaining how identities can sometimes exist visible, like age, or invisible, like a person'southward life experiences.

Then, with the permission of half dozen of her friends, White shared photos of their faces and had students estimate their "identity characteristics." Afterwards, she revealed the true details and led a class discussion about making assumptions about others based on how they wait or human activity. To finish the project, students drew their ain "identity portraits" or a pic of their face with one-half the face showing visible characteristics and the other one-half showing invisible characteristics.

Courtesy of Shana White

Students' identity portraits hang on a wall in Shana White's classroom.

The didactics organization Facing History and Ourselves recommends a similar exercise called the "Who am I?" activeness for middle school students. To start, select some key historical figures or fictional characters—retrieve inclusively and avoid stereotypes, selecting a broad range of people from different backgrounds—and ask students to discuss "factors such as faith, gender, and geography" that influenced their identities.

Next, accept students read the chapter "My Proper noun" from the book The House on Mango Street, where the main character, Esperanza, talks most her name, revealing details well-nigh her civilisation. Enquire students to create an identity chart for Esperanza, answering questions such equally "What is her family like?" and "What does her name reveal near her personality?" Guided by the reading, students tin and so create identity charts for themselves and share them with the form.

Learning Of import Details: Educatee Inventories

Pupil inventories can help teachers chop-chop discern details and facts most students that shape who they are, and can be used to plan further form activities and lessons. Ask students to list their favorite musicians, songs, sports, activities, games, or food, for example, or probe deeper with questions near their civilisation, memories, and family.

Some other option is having students write 20 sentences that complete the prompt, "I am someone who…" or asking a short list of thought-provoking questions in i-to-one Hopes and Dreams conferences. Target questions that tap into who students are now and who they promise to exist, such as "What are some things that bug you about the world?" "What inspires y'all?" and "What dreams do yous accept subsequently high schoolhouse?"

Look for patterns in student responses, and use what you learn to make classroom lessons and activities connected to students' interests, advises Rebecca Alber, an education professor in California, who says, "Students need to run into connections betwixt learning and their lived experiences."

Understanding Interests: Passion Blogging

In Allison Berryhill's high school English form, literary analysis exercises left her students "frozen," and complimentary-writing assignments produced hard-to-read rants. Influenced past the book Beyond Literary Assay, Berryhill started offer a new practise called "passion blogging" last year, in which students write about topics that interest them.

Courtesy of Allison Berryhill

A student in Allison Berryhill'south class holds upwards her heart map.

Students start by drawing "heart maps," or large hearts filled with illustrations and words that represent their passions. Then, they select one or two topics to explore further and look for related articles, images, and videos. Berryhill too gives accompanying form lessons on attribution of sources, texts, quotes, and imagery, and shares mentor texts to guide students' writing.

Students' blogs have run the gamut in subject field matter, from pheasant hunting to hunger strikes to hiking, and give them an opportunity to dive securely into things they care about. Every bit part of the procedure, students are also tasked with reading and evaluating several of their classmates' blogs. Overall, the low-stakes activity has served as a springboard to build students' literary analysis skills for harder assignments, says Berryhill, while helping her become to know them ameliorate.

Documenting Your Life: Movies, Photos, and Podcasts

Though many teachers and students are feeling virtual brain drain, digital tools can provide new, creative outlets for students to share and define their interests and personalities. Teachers are having students create autobiographical mini-movies or trailers about their lives and produce podcasts or write articles for digital school newspapers on problems they intendance about.

Influenced by her community'south experiences during the pandemic, Wendy McElfish, a high school instructor in California, taught a lesson on Dorothea Lange'due south famous blackness-and-white photography from the Great Depression. So, she had her students take their own photos with phones to document their lives. She guided them with the themes "life exterior your door," "through a window," "different life inside," and "porch photos of your family unit."

video

"When kids are faced with terrible circumstances, sometimes it helps to take an artistic arroyo," she said. "A lot of kids aren't good writers, but they take an eye and they have a voice... [and] they tin show the earth what I come across."

Similarly, Lori Wenzinger, a middle school social studies instructor in South Carolina, paired upward with a local photographer to create a three-week multimedia project called "Finding Your Joy." Later on the photographer taught two classes on photo composition and mood, students were tasked with taking photos that "capture joyful moments throughout their day," sharing and reviewing them as a class, and selecting their three favorites to keep in the form Google Drive.

Having Fun: Icebreakers, Games, and Accolades

Courtesy of Cathleen Beachboard

A student in Cathleen Beachboard's class brings his dog to grade for show-and-tell during remote learning.

In addition to more than comprehensive assignments and lessons, teachers can build in short, entertaining activities that continue students engaged and reveal insights about who they are.

Trevor Boffone, a loftier schoolhouse instructor in Texas, asked his students to submit their favorite song to a list at the start of the year. Now, at the beginning of each virtual form, he plays music to kick things off, incorporating students' picks and his own.

Throughout remote learning, Cathleen Beachboard, a middle school teacher in Virginia, says she'due south including fun activities like show-and-tells and theme days. This fall, she also adopted a practice that her superintendent uses for staff meetings called "Three Cool Things I've Seen." Once a week, Beachboard calls out 3 things she'due south observed nearly students from classes that week that recognize them for their individuality.

"I know a lot of teachers are struggling right now getting students pulled in. I found the more than encouragement and authentic praise we give to students, the more they swoop in," she said. "These are scary times, simply past giving students time to showcase their individuality, they will feel condom and ready to fully appoint in learning."

Getting to Know You 7th Grade

Source: https://www.edutopia.org/article/6-exercises-get-know-your-students-better-and-increase-their-engagement

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