Reflection: The Icing or the Cake?“Planning with student engagement in mind helps teachers meet

“Planning with student engagement in mind helps teachers meet students’ real, human needs. Without sacrificing their academic growth.”

From reading this quote alone, without having read the article yet, I can agree that when the focus is on the students and their interests, they tend to engage in school activities as it is more relatable. After reading The Icing or the Cake? I have gained some ideas about how I can get to know my students better. In the article, researchers found, only 7.3% of students answered, “strongly agree” to the question, “I feel like my teacher really knows me”. Although I am uncertain about the size of the study if it was in a classroom of 28 students, that is only two children who strongly agree with the statement. By getting to know your students this will help build a better rapport, trust, and honesty in the classroom. This helps to break down the student-teacher power barrier and struggle. Building trust and open communication with your students allows for better classroom management and allows the student to feel safe even when mistakes are made. I hope my students feel comfortable to ask questions when the material is unclear. I agree, in the past when managers or teachers have built a relationship, I was happier to go to school or work and I tried my best. When I teach, I hope my students feel a connection too, this may be challenging because I like to stay on track with my schedule and may impede of my relationship. However, I want my students to know that I care about them.

When a teacher follows-up with the previous lesson plan to find out if there are any misunderstandings from their students, it can build trust. It shows the students that the teacher cares and wants the students to comprehend the new concepts. I find when students understand the concept, they are more engaged and can move forward to more difficult tasks and thus increases their self-confidence. Whereas, when I was a student and felt confused, lost or angry from misunderstanding, it made me feel discouraged, defeated, and overwhelmed. I think following up on lessons is great for every student, it can reinforce knowledge for some learners, and it can clarify issues for others. I will be incorporating this the day after the lesson and homework to ensure my students have the ability to transfer their knowledge.

When students can connect their schoolwork to their personal lives it can make learning more fun and easier. When planning future multimodal lesson plans, I will incorporate everyday examples into questions such as sports, pets, or games to make it easier to grasp a concept, opposed to a math question related to stocks, which is unrelatable at that age. When dealing with these familiar concepts, I can make their work feel less intimidating to tackle. This also allows for more interaction with students which promotes success in and outside of the classroom. By finding activities that relate to the student’s interests, it also fosters student-student connections and communication when students have something in common, thus building a closer classroom community.

In relation to incorporating student interests, when the lesson is made with input from the students, it allows autonomy. When students feel in charge of their learning, there is an overall increase in engagement and comprehension, whether they get to choose from a list of options, or they get to choose a particular topic. By having a variety of options, there is a method that someone will prefer over another and this will increase their motivation to begin and complete a task. I feel the same way, such as, I would prefer to create a comic strip over typing a story if given the option because I enjoy creating art through visuals.

As long as the lesson plans align with the curriculum, the topic itself can still be of interest to the students without having to change certain expectations and goals. When my students have the confidence from previous achievements and experience to tackle their work, solving problems in the future will be less intimidating. I am excited to begin planning lessons with student involvement.