Engaged Teachers and Students
One of the things that stand out to me when I think about vibrant learning spaces is that both teachers and students are engaged in the environment.
Teachers have such an influence on the tone of the classroom, so if the teacher isn't interested and putting forth engaged energy, it will be very difficult to have students feel engaged.
In the ever more complicated role that teachers play, this means that self-care is very important for educators. When a teacher is burnt out and exhausted, it would be very difficult to create a vibrant learning space. However, self-care is difficult when there are ever increasing demands on teachers in both their professional and private lives. I have seen that over the years, there is less time for teachers to prepare and collaborate with their colleagues and more time where teachers are instructing and supervising. This leaves little time for spending time creating engaging and creative lessons. Thus, I think, as educators we need to think about how it is possible to create space for this self-care for teachers especially for educators that are or will be in leadership roles.
Strong, Silver & Robinson (2021, p.3) found that students saw work as engaging when the work "stimulated their curiosity, permitted them to express their creativity, and fostered positive relationships with others". To be able to create lessons that foster this takes time and thought and creativity on the part of the teacher. There are so many different factors in the classroom, from classroom composition to resources available, that influence how the teacher lesson plans. In order to be able to create these lessons, teachers must have the energy and time to be able to create them.
Reference
Strong, R., Silver, H. F., & Robinson, A. (2021). Strengthening Student Engagement: What Do Students Want. ASCD. Retrieved January 14, 2023, from https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/strengthening-student-engagement-what-do-students-want
Thank you for sharing this post! This is very relevant especially with the high levels of teacher burnout and having to teach during COVID. It is so important that we take care of ourselves before we take care of others. I know that for me when I am not taking proper care of myself my lessons are not nearly as engaging as when I'm feeling like my normal self. I found a study that I thought I'd share with you. The study was done to see if students noticed when their teachers were stressed out. Oberle et al. (2020) found that "Teachers who reported higher levels of burnout were perceived as significantly less socially and emotionally competent by their students, and teachers who reported lower levels of burnout were perceived as significantly more socially and emotionally competent" (p. 10). I am not surprised that students are able to pick up on this and I believe that this stress would be passed on to them.
ReplyDeleteI am looking forward to reading the rest of your blog posts!
Reference
Oberle, E., Gist, A., Cooray, M. S., & Pinto, J. B. R. (2020). Do students notice stress in teachers? Associations between classroom teacher burnout and students’ perceptions of teacher social–emotional competence. Psychology in the Schools, 57(11), 1741–1756. https://doi.org/10.1002/pits.22432