Teachers Building Character and Trust with their Students

1. MAE 5060: Strategies of the
21st Century Classroom
Building Character and Trust
Christina Davidson
By PresenterMedia.com

2. Building Character and Trust
"Character is the only secure foundation of the state.“
Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933
As so eliquently stated by President Calvin Coolidge, building
character is the foundation to a secure state. This holds true to education in
today’s society as well. To create a positive classroom culture, the teacher
must first build trust and character among his/her students. These two key
elements within the classroom atmosphere, set the tempo for creating and
sustaining excellence in the learning environment.

3. Building Character and Trust
Three Key Techniques
Precise The technique uses positive reinforcement to build trust between
Praise the teacher and the student; allowing the student to feel pride in
providing correct answers.
Emotional This technique creates a consistent relationship with the teacher.
Constancy Consistency builds trust which creates an environment of higher
achievement
This technique is used to reinforce the academics as well as that day’s
Normalize learning objective. It provides a little sparkle to
Error the day and reinforces learning by being on point.

4. Building Character and Trust
Precise Praise
• Creating Classroom Culture
• Knowing the difference in Precise
Praise versus Acknowledgement
• Praise Loud; Fix Soft
• Praise given for working hard
• Fosters effort and risk taking
• Praise the behavior not the trait
• Praising the behavior focuses on the
action you would like to see
• Praising the trait has the opposite effect
• Proven to take fewer risks

5. Building Character and Trust Praise invariably
implies a
reference to a
Compare and Contrast higher standard.
Aristotle (384bc-322bc)
PRECISE PRAISE V/S ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
• Why does this technique work? • Merely the act of expressing
• Provides verbal recognition for something was done correctly
the students desired outcome • Example
• Building block of operant • “Yes Mallory, you answered
conditioning correctly”
• Utilizes consequences to
increase the desired positive
behavior
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6. Building Character and Trust
Emotional Constancy
• Building a classroom culture from
emotional constancy also builds trust
with your students.
“Success is in the long run about a student’s consistent
relationship with productive behaviors (Lemov, 2010).”

7. Building Character and Trust
Emotional Constancy
• Modulate your Emotions
• Don’t get worked up
• Use self control and retraint
• Respond Calmly
• Tie your emotions to the students performance.
• Use excited and pleasurable words when student
perform to your expectations and above
• Avoid saying your “disappointed” in them

8. Building Character and Trust
Normalize Error
• Avoid chastising • Don’t Flatter “Getting it wrong and then
students for wrong getting it wright is one of the
answers • Don’t Fuss fundamental processes for
schooling. (Lemov, 2010)”
• Do not makes excuses
for students getting
the incorrect answer

9. Building Character and Trust
Normalize Error
Champion teachers have built a classroom culture where students
understand that the teacher expects them to get right and wrong answers.
This technique goes hand in hand with the precise praise technique. This is
because the teacher must be careful to amount of praise so that it isn’t
diluted or overused.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuO7VHy
Y1sc&feature=player_detailpage

10. Techniques that Build Character & Trust
www.christinasclassroom.webs.com
Follow the link to Christina’s Classroom to obtain additional
information about building Character and Trust with your students

11. References:
Lemov, D. (2010). Teach like a champion - 49
techniques that put students on the path
to college. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Petti, W. (2008). Eveb teachers make mistakes.
Education World, Retrieved from
http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/
mathchat/mathchat011.shtml