How to cultivate positive relationships in your classroom

positive relationships in classroom/school mint

Know your students

Knowing a student's interests can help you create examples to match those interests.

 If a student who loves basketball comes to you with a question about a math problem, you might respond to her with a problem involving basketball.

If a student who speaks Spanish at home comes to you with a question about English vocabulary, you might answer his question and then ask him what the word is in Spanish and how he'd use it in a sentence. This type of specific responding shows that you care about your students as people and that you are aware of their unique strengths (i.e., fluency in another language).

 If a girl in your class is particularly destructible, you can support her efforts to concentrate by offering her a  quieter area in which to work.


  If a boy in your classroom is very shy, appears engaged but never raises his hand to ask questions, you can assess his level of understanding of a concept in a one-on-one conversation at the end of class.

Give students meaningful feedback

Notice the way that you give feedback to your students. If possible, watch a video of your own teaching.

    Are you giving students meaningful feedback that says you care about them and their learning, or are you constantly telling your students to hurry?

    In your conversations, are you focusing on what your students have accomplished or are you concentrating your comments on what they have not yet mastered?

    Does your body language, facial expression and tone of voice show your students that you are interested in them as people too?

    Are you telling them to do one thing, yet you model quite different behavior? For example, are you telling your students to listen to each other, but then look bored when one of them talks to the class? Be sure that the feedback you give to your students conveys the message that you are supporting their learning and that you care about them.

 Are you paying more attention to some students than to others?

Create a positive classroom climate

Be sure to allow time for your students to link the concepts and skills they are learning to their own experiences. Build fun into the things you do in your classroom. Plan activities that create a sense of community so that your students have an opportunity to see the connections between what they already know and the new things they are learning, as well as have the time to enjoy being with you and the other students. Make sure to provide social and emotional support and set high expectations for learning.

Be respectful and sensitive to adolescents

Supportive teacher-student relationships are just as important to middle and high school students as they are to elementary students. Positive relationships encourage students' motivation and engagement in learning. Older students need to feel that their teachers respect their opinions and interests just as much as younger students do. Even in situations where adolescents do not appear to care about what teachers do or say, teacher actions and words do matter and may even have long term positive (or negative) consequences.