The most common themes I have seen throughout all of my blog posts, papers, and discussions that I am most passionate about are community, culture, and advocacy. Not only are these topics that I was passionate about prior to this program, but I have found that they seem to be interwoven into most courses in one way or another. Whether they are discussed in readings, videos, or stated within the course material to consider and think about through our research, they are important topics to always consider when working within education.
Before I began this program, I knew that these topics were important to consider as an educator but I had less of an idea on how to implement these ideas into the classroom. While working in a school that has a diverse population, it is important to me to be able to use these ideas effectively in the classroom.
One thing I really love about my school is that the community and culture is already really amazing, so it's really just continuing that ideal into my own classroom. This site will unfortunately not allow me to upload the video that I took to show you all the community in action.
Annotated Bibliography -
I chose the article Building Community, Collaborative, and Cognitive Classroom Culture as my first annotated bibliography source. This article explains that culture is not only the student's individual culture but also the culture of the classroom and the dynamics that creates. Culture influences the individual, how they feel, and how they learn. Classroom culture can be a defining force in how students learn while they are there. Building classroom culture takes critical thinking, empathy (knowing that putting students in new situations can feel like the first day of school all over again), and planning forethought.
Plotts, C., PhD. (2024, February 19). Building community, collaborative, and cognitive classroom culture. Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning. https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/equality-inclusion-and-diversity/building-community-collaborative-and-cognitive-classroom-culture/
The next article I found is called, How to Use Culturally Responsive Teaching in the Classroom. This article gave really good advice on how to use a culturally responsive teaching technique. These tips included getting to know your students well so that you can identify what your students' strong suits are and what they might need support with. (Relationships are always key!) It then goes on to state that we should simply ask our students what their interests are, that can be a survey or even done with an exit ticket at the beginning of the year. It then reminds us that students come to class with a lot of knowledge already! We should be willing to learn from our students as well. As always, we should be focusing on creating good relationships with our students while also always being willing to learn ourselves.
Understood, E. T. A. (2026, April 15). How to use culturally responsive teaching in the classroom. Understood. https://www.understood.org/en/articles/how-to-use-culturally-responsive-teaching-in-the-classroom
Reflection -
Reading through these articles only reaffirms the knowledge on how important building positive relationships are with students. Having that positive relationship be a foundation into learning how you can best help your students learn and grow is vital. These methods can help us to understand our students, create positive classroom cultures, and be able to build a classroom community that is positive and ready to learn (and have fun!) It is important to learn these concepts before going into the classroom so that we can be familiar with the ideas in order to put them into practice. Implementing these ideas are always the more difficult part but being able to save these articles in a place that I can always come back to them is going to be incredibly helpful.
Questions -
What are the best ways to get to know your students?
What are the ways in which you, a fellow teacher, implement classroom culture?
How can we create a classroom culture that respects and values each and every student?
Add comment
Comments