Student Success

The first strategy that I employ to gain student success is building relationships. For me, this started on the first day. I passed out interest inventories that ask questions about who they live with, what sports they are in, if they have a job, and what they dream of their futures being. I then took the time to read each one of these. They took the time to write down personal things and so I take the time to read it—taking it beyond the typical “filler” first-day activity. If someone joked off in it, I asked them to redo it. This immediately let the students know that I have high expectations on everything that they do in my classroom. I try to mention things that I read about the students to them to show that I remembered or ask follow-up …show more content…
We discuss things when we fall below those expectations and I let them know that I believe in them. Without a goal to aim towards, students are aimless. When we, as teachers, do not give them difficult assignments, we are saying, “I don’t think you can do hard work.” My students often complain about how much work I give them and that it is so hard. However, these same students tell me about how bored they are in classes that they do not do much work in and complain when the work is easy in other classes. Though they will probably never say they like hard work, knowing a teacher believes you can do it is a great feeling. The best feeling they get is when they complete the hard work and feel accomplished something. It allows them to gain confidence in their own …show more content…
I teach Algebraic Reasoning to students that originally did not pass that STAAR Algebra 1 test; so, it is incredibly important to approach concepts from different angles and modalities. I try to incorporate one project per six weeks. We have done a project on creating a business and examining cost, revenue, and profit. We have also done projects where we went outside and recorded students throwing balls into the air and then wrote and analyzed the corresponding quadratic equations. I try to create memories within different assignments to have that tie back when they need to remember something from the concept.

Another strategy I use is posting grades regularly for my students to see how they are doing in the class. This gives them the appropriate time to come in and make up missing work and correct assignments. I also let students know what they needed to make on their semester final to get an “A,” “B,” or “C” in the class so that they could make appropriate goals and try their hardest. Regular feedback on grades allows students to realize where they are at and the steps that they need to take to get to where they want to