Teacher Characteristics and Social Emotional Learning

(upbeat music) - Hello, welcome to tonight's episode. My name is Edna Camarillo. Do you recall your favorite teacher? What type of personality did your favorite teacher have? Were they nice, funny, and caring? What about your least favorite teacher? Were they grouchy, strict, and condescending? How did either type of teacher affect how you did in their class or even school? Student-teacher relationships can affect a student's academic achievement in many ways. The topic we will discuss on this episode is teacher characteristics and social-emotional learning. This is my overarching theme and focus in my doctoral program. Student-teacher relationships and student achievement. Our school districts providing ongoing professional development for secondary education teachers to improve their social-emotional and relational skills and dispositions. The expert dictionary defines the relationship to be the way in which two or more people or groups regard and behave toward each other. Humans search and search for other humans that will connect and bond so that some of our needs are met. Imagine a high school student needing to mesh well with several adults on a daily basis for four years. Students spend much time with their teachers a lot more than they do with their guardians. Student-teacher relationships are vital to student achievement. However, our teachers prepared and trained to build positive and ethical relationships with students. After all, there are 25 to 30 individuals in most high school classrooms. There is a possibility that personalities will clash between student and teacher. In my experience, I have encountered other professionals who have very strong personalities and feel they need to be a bit aggressive in their delivery, a lot more strict. One example that sticks out in his common in many schools is a teacher sending a student to the office or out of the class because the student was not prepared. Instead of embarrassing the student, taking away instructional time, the teacher could have just given the student the material more a pencil without interrupting the lesson and without embarrassing the student. That trip to the office sent a message to the student. My teacher doesn't like me. The student-teacher relationship is already been broken and possibly what follows can affect the student's progress and student achievement in a negative way. When a new teacher is hired, their education has equipped them with how to be an effective educator in instruction and delivery of the content with new ideas on how to teach. But what is not taught is rapport, teacher characteristics among students. What kind of professional development can be offered to help teachers establish strong, positive student-teacher relationships? Counselors have been trained to deliver character building and social-emotional lessons. Teachers, however, are not trained in social-emotional learning. Still, it is vital to know and have those tools to aid in building a good student-teacher relationship. Having these tools to establish rapport would affect many aspects in the high school environment, such as discipline, tardiness, absences, truancy, and skipping school. Our jobs as educators is to prepare students to be successful in their own lives and community, not only academically but socially. Teachers must play all roles and provide all of the basic emotional needs, but not all are prepared to offer such guidance. Previous studies into the learning experiences of students pertaining to motivation have revealed the fact that some students are highly motivated in the lessons of some teachers but suffer low levels of motivation in the lessons of others. This is related to the teacher and their delivery. In a 2019 study conducted by Amy Chastine-Miller, the findings determined that caring was a common threat to students' responses. If students felt the professor cared, then that was motivation enough to learn and do well in the class. Teachers who interacted with students in class solicited feedback on their level of understanding and adjusted their teaching to try to improve student learning were interpreted as caring. The faculty who were seen as most caring were described as using humor, bringing in relatable examples, and interacting regularly with the students. At a middle school or high school, counselors have so many other responsibilities that character-building and social-emotional learning are not as evident. High school students still need guidance, motivation, and maybe even nurturing. Teachers at the high school level are spread in with multiple preps over 100 students and other contractual duties. Not all teachers are nurturing. Not all can handle certain student behaviors, let alone handle student-emotional issues. More needs to be provided so that a teacher is well equipped to guide their students that will also benefit the student and their academic achievement. The connection to this topic is due to observations made by myself as a teacher, instructional coach, and parent. My observations have led me to witness administration, teacher and student attitudes, and most importantly, student-teacher relationships. There are teachers who are there to teach the content and make no effort to get to know the student, leading to conflict in the classroom. Providing SEL professional development to all teachers at the elementary, middle, and high school setting would change the classroom culture and most importantly, create more positive student-teacher relationships to promote student achievement. So this concludes tonight's episode. Thank you for listening. See you again next week.