- The document discusses how allowing students to assess a teacher's own performances and writings can build rapport between students and teachers and increase student engagement. The presenter advocates that teachers share their creations, such as published writings, speeches, and videos, to model expectations for students and build confidence. By vulnerably sharing their work with students and inviting feedback, teachers can help students feel invested in the learning process and less likely to misbehave out of boredom or confusion.

1. Teacher Vulnerability: A Precursor
to Student Engagement, Rapport,
and Performance
Two Year College Association Midwest Conference
Grand Valley State University
Grand Rapids, MI
10/4/14
A’Kena LongBenton, ABD, EdS
Wayne County Community College
akenalong@aol.com

2. Thought-provoking Questions
• As teachers, we instruct our students to
“write…write…write…and write some more,”
but how often do we write?
• As much as we critique our students’ writing,
are we willing to be vulnerable enough to
share our creations, performances, and/or
writings with our overly critical students?

3. Logistics
• Workshop Questions Web Link:
http://goo.gl/AzCOQC
• Today’s Workshop Slides: _____
• Poll Everywhere: http://goo.gl/vBTV3p

4. Vulnerability Video
• http://goo.gl/A8hCcX

5. Presentation Premise
• As a regular practice, I allow my students to
assess my performance.
• Specifically, in my college communication and
English courses, I deliver speeches and share
my published writings with students,
respectively.

6. Peer-to-Peer Learning
• To further model assignment expectations, I
also share student-generated speech videos
and student writings (with their permission, of
course).

7. • It pre-exposes students to the grading rubric that will
assess their performance.
• It illustrates the confidence in my own performance.
• Student voices are heard.
• Builds students’ confidence.
• Builds classroom community, i.e., “We’re all in this
learning process together.”

8. ARCS Model of Motivation
J. Keller (1983)
• Attention—arousing interest
• Relevance—creating relevance
• Confidence—developing an expectancy of
success
• Satisfaction—producing satisfaction through
intrinsic/extrinsic rewards

9. Modeling Expectations
• Because, I am a proponent of modeling,
sharing my performances allows me to model
the behavioral objectives that I expect my
students to ultimately demonstrate.
• I believe that students best perform when
expectations are first modeled for them.

10. Turning the Tables
• Besides, students get a genuine “kick” out of
the “tables being turned” where they can
ultimately assess their teachers.

11. Student Engagement
• It’s also very interesting to witness how
engaged they are in this section of the lesson.

12. Naysayers
• Of course, you will have the student whose
goal is to give you a “C” or lower regardless of
how stellar your performance is.

13. Lies vs. Truth
• However, the majority of the class will not
have “personal axes to grind.”
• Plus, the “get even” students just expose
where their intentions lie (no pun intended).
• Their scores just serve as outliers and do not
affect the instructor’s median and mode
scores.

14. Who’s the author?
• As a former high school teacher, I remember
reading an engaging text to my 9th grade
students and them later asking who the
author was (I purposefully omitted this
notable detail.).

15. Focus on the Believers
• I casually responded, “Me.”
• The first time, most of the class was amazed!
• Of course, a few skeptics didn’t believe it, but
then again, they rarely believed anything. 
• Once proven, they later accepted my response as
“truth.”

16. • Similarly, there is a creation, performance,
and/or writing in all of us…just waiting to be
shared. Have you shared yours lately?

17. Sharing cont.
• As a college instructor, I am committed to
further sharing mine as I instruct my students.
• Please join me and share your writings,
performances, and/or creations with your
students.
• It will positively change the relationship that
you have with them. Guaranteed!

18. No Guarantees
• OK, well…maybe, there are no guarantees in
education.
• Yet, this teaching practice is a safe bet to
winning some of your unengaged learners.

19. Rapport Building
• Dennis Littky (2004), cofounder of the Big
Picture Company, a nonprofit educational
reform organization, discusses the importance
of incorporating the 3 R’s: relationships,
relevance, and rigor in the classroom.

20. Rapport Building cont.
• Also, the teacher has an opportunity to build a
better rapport with her class because students
value when teachers creatively instruct them
(whether they tell us or not).
• Furthermore, students notice and appreciate
when hard work goes into innovative lesson
planning.

21. Less Behavioral Problems
• Consequently, they began to see their teacher
from a positive vantage point.
• Less behavioral problems also a byproduct of
rapport building—a result that any instructor
would love to experience.
• Note: Sidebar conversations are often a result
of boredom and/or confusion.

22. Assignment Instructions Example
• See “Self-Introduction Performance” Handout,
p. 3

23. Outline Example
• See “Self-Introduction Outline” Handout, p. 4

24. Rubric Example
• See “Self-Introduction Speech Evaluation”
Handout, p. 5.

25. Published Writing Examples
• See “Survival via Creative Writing:
Remembering the Power of Story” Handout,
p. 6. (MCTE: eMET, Fall 2012).
• “I am You/You are I” Handouts, pp. 7-9 (A Young
Urban Professional Speaks, 2003).

26. Animoto Examples
• goo.gl/0zsp3k
• Nearly 30 self-created Animoto videos in the
following disciplines:
– English
– Math
– Science
– Social Studies
– Technology
– Writing

27. Questions
• Workshop Questions Web Link:
http://goo.gl/AzCOQC

28. Evaluations
Please evaluate this presentation with a word,
phrase, and/or paragraph.
http://goo.gl/Yd6Ix6