Understanding students is very important to teaching.

In order to plan how to teach your students

or ways to present a subject in an interesting manner a teacher needs to know what motivates the
students, what background the students are bringing to the classroom, as well as the students
interests. As learned in Philosophy and Organization of the School students, are changing
cognitively, socially, and physically which all affect their learning. Students are also impact by
their culture, neighborhood, and peers. Knowing a little of this background helps the teacher
understand students and in turn can answer question, such as: ‘How can I help this student learn
better?’ or ‘What in the students life can I relate this topic to so it is interesting?’ Anyone can
stand up and teach a class about any topic, but understanding the students completes a teacher.
There is essay aims at establishing strategies for a teacher to understand and explain the behavior
and activities of learners both in the classroom and outside classroom.

The first strategy would just be to talk to the students. The purpose of this would be to open the
lines of communication between you and the students. A teacher is not going to learn anything
from their students if the student does not want to communicate with the teacher. Simple verbal
communication is a non threatening way. Talking to the students can range from a conversation
about their dog to something as simple as asking how their day is going. By talking the students
personality starts to show through in the way they express themselves verbally and
nonverbally. When a student responds to you verbally there are also nonverbal cues the teacher
can take, like body language. Is the student open and using hand gestures, confident in what they
say, or maybe uncomfortable speaking out loud. Based on just talking to the students the teacher
can decide various teaching strategies to help his/her students. This is also a two way street if the
student shares something about themselves the teacher should share a little bit about themselves
in order to establish a connection. An example I found on-line was a teacher that had 6th graders
that were scared to be in a new school with the older 8th graders. She told a funny story about her
dog that is afraid of everything. This alleviated some of the students’ apprehension and established
a connection with the teacher making her human also (Pam Chandler). As a teacher I think it is
important to establish a comfortable verbal rapport with the students so they feel comfortable
expressing their concerns to me as well as participate in class.
your students is another strategy for understanding students. The teacher can observe how the
students interact with each other. This is important because the teacher can see where the divides
are between cliques or who does not get along with who. Observing behavior is also a way to
survey student’s personalities. The more outgoing students will probably be more boisterous; the
introvert students will probably be quieter. Observing how the students interact can help a teacher
plan a seating chart. For example my cooperating teacher creates seating charts by reading level
and observed behavior. She knows who gets along with whom. You do not want people that do
not get along sitting next to each other or too many extroverts sitting together because they might
feed off each others energy and cause a distraction. I believe observed behavior is also important
to understanding students.

A third strategy to understand your students is to look at their past school records or Individualized
Education Program( IEP). This helps the teacher project what the academic performance might
be for the class. A teacher can see what subjects his/her individual students need help with. For
example if a student received an A in math, but a lower grade in English, the teacher could guess
that the student is left brain dominant, good at logic but needs help with reading and writing.
Looking at the IEP helps the teacher understand what help the student might need and what is
currently being done to help the special needs student. Looking at the student’s academic records
helps the teacher understand what they may or may not need help with academically. You not
only need to understand the student’s behavior, interests, and motivation, but understand them
academically to be able to help them understand the subjects. My apprenticeship teacher at the
beginning of the year looks at the files of her students; she marks in the grade books the students’
reading level so she knows who might need extra help. She also reads the IEPs so she understands
what type of disability a student might have and what she should do about it. This is important
because there might be a pattern of what worked academically and what did not in past student
performance.

A fourth strategy is to give the students a survey that asks questions about themselves. A teacher
could had it out the first or second week of school in order to see what the students are interested
in, their background, and other things that you could incorporate into lessons. This is also a way
for students that are not real vocal to express who they are in writing. A survey is also a hard copy
that you can refer back to as opposed to talking or observation. A survey can also tell you what
the student’s motivation is or their interests that you can bring into a lesson so they get excited
about the lesson too. My cooperating teacher uses surveys in order to get a consensus from her
class on issues concerning the class. For example recently a parent complained that his child was
getting too much homework. She usually gives 15 minutes of social studies a night and she thought
the homework she was giving fit this time frame. She took a survey and asked each student to
right down how much time they spend at night on social studies and a total on homework. The
majority responded 15 minutes. By giving a survey it shows that as a teacher you take the time to
create something tangible to get to know your students.

A fifth strategy to know your students is to get involved in extracurricular activities. According to
Woollard, J. (2010) most students that participate in after school activities do so because they are
interested in the topic, whether it is kick ball or craft time. You can lead the student in an activity
that they like rather than a subject that they have no interest in. Sometimes when a teacher leads
students in a fun activity the teacher become more human, not just a grown up that stands in front
of the class. It makes teacher more approachable. For example, at Ordean there are various student
intramural teams that meet at lunch and after school, but the teachers also have an intramural team
that plays against the students. The students love it because they get to do something fun with
their teachers, and possibly the fun subject can be reflected back to something done in the
classroom. Teachers can be role models for students outside of the classroom.

A sixth strategy to get to know your students is to have a bulletin board in the classroom that
features a student of the week. Each week a different student gets to bring in pictures as well as a
list of their five favorite things and three things they want to do in the future. The purpose of this
is that each student can feel special for the week, and at the same time the teacher and the students
can get to know the student better. I think it is good that students can bring things into the
classrooms that represent themselves. It is also another form of expression. The student is not
describing themselves verbally or through writing, but through visuals.

A seventh strategy to understand your students is games on the first or second day of class. The
purpose of this is you get to know your students, your students get to know you, and your students
get to know each other. If you get to know your students chances are that you will understand the
better. Also if students get to know you and each other they might feel more comfortable in the
classroom and subsequently more willing to participate. Also it is harder for a student to act up if
they know the teacher has an interest in them rather than just another face sitting in the back row.

When someone behaves in particular manner, then there is something to be explained. If you see
a man yelling at the cashier at a store, then that is an unexpected behavior that you want to
explain. You might think there is something specific about the situation that caused the
behavior. Perhaps the cashier made a costly mistake that angered the customer. Another
explanation is that the customer had a goal he was trying to accomplish like to be aggressive in
order to get a refund that was different than store policy. A third possibility is that the person has
a trait that led to the behavior. This man just might be mean.

A lot of work on the fundamental attribution error suggests that people explain their own behavior
based on situations, but other people’s behavior based on some characteristic of that person. Still,
though, that doesn’t determine whether that characteristic is a goal (like trying to get a refund) or
a trait (like being mean).

A paper in the February 2018 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology by Irmak
Okten and Gordon Moskowitz examined this question. They argue that when people have an
atypical behavior they want to explain, there are two dimensions they take into account in figuring
out what kind of explanation to give. They are focused on whether the person does the behavior
all the time or just once (consistency) and whether they do it only in particular circumstances or
everywhere (distinctiveness).

They argue that behaviors that are highly consistent (they are done all the time) and not particularly
distinctive (they are done in all situations) lead people to explain the behavior with a
trait. Behaviors that are either not that consistent (they are not done that often) or are quite
distinctive (they are done only in specific situations) lead people to explain the behavior with a
goal, because goals are often specific to particular contexts.

Across several studies, participants read about the behaviors of a person. For example, someone
might clip coupons. That is not a behavior everyone does, so it needs some explanation. Studies
varied either the consistency of the behavior, the distinctiveness of it, or both. As a manipulation
of consistency, the person might always clip coupons, or they might only clip them one time. As
a manipulation of distinctiveness, the person might gather coupons only from the newspaper or
from newspapers, magazines and on-line sources.

In some studies, participants made ratings of how much that behavior was likely to reflect a goal
of the person or a trait of that person. In all of the studies, participants gave their own explanation
for the behavior, which was then coded. The results were consistent with the researchers’
expectations.

When a behavior happens consistently and/or when it happens across situations, then people
increase their belief that the behavior reflects a trait of the person, and they generate explanations
of behavior that focus on traits. When a behavior happens inconsistently and/or when it happens
in just a few situations, then people increase their belief that the behavior reflects a specific goal
of the person, and they generate descriptions that focus on specific goals someone is trying to
achieve.

In conclusion, in order for a teacher to effectively teach, there in need for the teacher to know
his/her students. It is said that one can only know another by understanding their behavior, hence
for a teacher to know his/her students he/she needs to understand their behavior. With reference to
what has been discussed, some of the ways/strategies to achieving this are, simply to the students,
observing them, involving them in extracurricular activities and so much more. Having established
how a teacher can understand to students behavior, its important that the behavior noted is
explained. Explanation of behavior will depend on the frequency of the behavior been shown.
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