Teach Middle East Magazine May 2014 issue 1 vol. 1 | Page 11

Sharing Good Practice

THE THREE CS TO GAINING YOUR
STUDENTS’ TRUST
By Jan L. Jones

Cooperation

I try to promote a classroom
environment that encourages students
to work together. Even when I am
teaching large classes, I will involve
group work. While students often
begrudge having to work together,
they almost always pull together and
succeed. I include collaborative tasks
in my lessons because they force
students to become a bit more aware
of the realities of the real world. There
they will need to work with different
personalities, deal with unexpected
problems and still collaborate with
colleagues to accomplish an end goal.
The best projects I have seen are
those that required cooperation and
collaboration amongst students with
many different talents.

A

fter reviewing my student
evaluations from the past
six years when applying for
tenure, I noticed that students
more often commented on how I treated
them rather than about what they
learned. Their comments reminded me
of our middle school motto in Canada,
which was “Caring, Courtesy and
Cooperation”. When I really thought
about it, I realized that this motto really
captures my approach to getting to
know students.

I find that students and other
colleagues sometimes think that being
kind is synonymous with being an
easy grader when really it is quite the
opposite. If you provide a nurturing
environment and let students know
that their success matters to you, they
usually work harder. Remind your
students that setting high standards for
them is in fact just a way of letting them
know that you do care.

Caring

When teaching I have found it useful
to discuss mutual respect at the very
beginning of the semester.
With
technology today people in general
expect instant responses to questions.
I remind my students that I am a mom
and that when I do not respond to their
late night assignment questions, it is
not because I don’t care, but because
I have other obligations. I do not give
out my cell phone number but I make
it very clear when and how students
can reach me before assignments are
due. I remind them that their lack of
organization or procrastination does
not constitute my emergency. I also let
them know that I understand that life
happens and that sometimes you just
have to deal with the consequences.

I tell my students all of the time that I
care about them. If they skip class, I
ask them why they were not there or
I tell them that I missed them. When
they do not hand in assignments, I
meet with them to find out why. If they
fall asleep, I ask them if they are okay
and they