How the Teacher Responds

The way teachers respond in the classroom to their students and others around them plays a crucial part in the everyday classroom. There are at least five ways in which teachers can respond to the students' needs for affirmation, contribution, power, purpose, and challenge. The ways in which teacher can respond make the world of difference in the classroom and is the core of effective teaching. The five elements are as follows: 

1. The Response of Invitation: the teacher who intends to make ties with the student is permanently attuned to factors that enhance the invitation and minimize the risk for each learner individually and the class as a whole. 

2. The Response of Opportunity: to provide opportunity is to help learners have a voice in what and how they learn and to find their own voice through study.  

3. The Response of Investment: invested teachers make links with students' lives outside of the classroom and are personally engaged in what they ask their students to do. 

4. The Response of Persistence: when a student is missing specific concepts, the persistent teacher does not assume the student cannot learn, but rather assumes the student is not learning in the way he/she is currently being taught. In the eyes of a teacher, when a student fails, the teacher fails. 

5. The Response of Reflection: teacher reflection inevitably attends directly to students' need for affirmation, contribution, power, purpose, and challenge. 

I believe it's important as a teacher to have structure, follow through with consistency, and assure students know you love them. I believe it's important to be firm with the students, but let them know you're doing so because you love them and you're there to help them succeed in all they do. It's important to respond to the students in a way that will help them preform better as students and as individuals. I want to be the teacher who responds to students in an effective and loving way.