The I Wish My Teacher Knew strategy provides teachers with an opportunity to build a strong relationship with students and form a strong classroom community. Students share with their teacher via a "I Wish My Teacher Knew..." jar or box some things about themselves that they would like their teacher to know. This strategy supports teachers to connect with their students on a personal level. When students feel known by their teachers, they are more likely to feel authentically connected to the learning community. Ideally, this strategy would be used in the beginning, middle and end of the school year to begin and maintain a meaningful connection with students.
Prior to implementing the I Wish My Teacher Knew strategy, it is important that you strategically plan for implementation by completing the following:
Determine whether you would like to have students use sentence stems like the ones included in the resource section below to share their experiences or emotions with you.
If you choose to use the sentence strips below, make several copies of them for students to use and place them in a pile in your classroom.
Determine how you would like students to share their "I Wish My Teacher Knew..." responses with you.
For example, you could have a jar or a box in which students can insert their responses.
Determine how frequently you would like to review student submissions (several times a day, daily, weekly)
Determine how you will respond to students' submissions.
For example, you could respond in writing or you could meet with the student individually
Determine what you plan to do if a student shares information that must be shared with others such as a school social worker or school psychologist.
Think about how you will introduce and explain the I Wish My Teacher Knew jar or box to your students.
Now that you have planned for the I Wish My Teacher Knew strategy it is time to implement it with students/teachers:
Introduce the I Wish My Teacher Knew jar or box to your students and explain what it is and how students can use it.
Model writing an "I Wish My Teacher Knew" statement.
Have students practice writing "I Wish My Teacher Knew" statements at the beginning of the year and inserting them into the box or jar.
This is a great way to get to know your students at the beginning of the year!
Establish guidelines for when and how the I Wish My teacher Knew box or jar will be used, how you will respond to students' submissions, and how frequently you will respond.
The I Wish My Teacher Knew is a strategy that will take time to refine in your classroom. After you begin implementing the I Wish My Teacher Knew, consider the following:
What’s working?
How has the I Wish My Teacher Knew jar or box helped your or your students share their emotions with you?
How has the I Wish My Teacher Knew jar or box contributed to a stronger relationship between you and your students?
What do students like about this strategy?
What do students need in order to continue doing this strategy successfully?
What do students need support with to do this strategy independently?
What do you need to change?
In a distance setting, there is greater challenge to creating strong personal connections with students. Using I Wish My Teacher Knew in a distance setting creates a space for relationships and belonging in a distance learning community.
Implementation steps:
Select a tool where students can share their response to I Wish My Teacher Knew. If you already have a check in or feedback system, consider using this same tool.
In Google Forms, teachers can choose to require the question and whether or not they want the responses to be anonymous. Use the short answer or paragraph option depending on the length or response you are expecting from students.
Voxer creates the opportunity for students to respond through text or by recording their response. This can be sent to the teacher directly.
Flipgrid can house all student responses on one grid. If discretion is desired, the teacher can create one grid per student that only the teacher can access and respond to. This creates a rich opportunity for sharing between student and teacher in a central location.
Padlet in Shelf mode can be enabled for students and teachers to respond through both video and audio. Anonymity is an option in this format. Similar to Flipgrid, private Padlets can be created for each student, restricting access to only the teacher.
Establish a schedule or cadence for using the strategy. Some examples are:
Every Monday, in order to establish a strong start to the week and share any important information from the weekend.
Every Friday, as a part of weekly reflection.
When returning from a break in learning, in order to re engage and reestablish connections with students.
At the conclusion of a unit or key moment of instruction as a part of self-reflection and assessment.
Set the purpose with students if this is the first time implementing this strategy. In a synchronous setting, share with students that they are loved and important, which is why this is an opportunity to share something that may not feel comfortable saying aloud or in a group.
To modify this for an asynchronous setting, the teacher may record themselves with Loom where they express the importance of each student as a part of the learning community.
Share the links to the Google Form, Padlet, or Flipgrid with students or send out the "I Wish My Teacher Knew..." prompt through Voxer.
As a teacher, it would be beneficial to monitor and track responses from students, in order to enrich future conversations and establish strong connections with students. A Google Sheet with each student as a separate sheet can be created from Google Form responses. Similarly, a separate Google Doc can be created for each student where information can be noted.
Personalizing instruction through getting to know you activities is a foundational tool teachers can use to better support all students with disabilities to become more engaged participants in their learning. In order to plan effectively to use getting to know you activities to support students with disabilities teachers should consider the following modifications:
Modifications:
Use visual timers and verbal reminders for each part of a getting to know you activity to help students with task initiation and task completion.
Teachers should think carefully about the approach of quality over quantity when helping students with disabilities share information with them and their peers. For example, a teacher could ask students to only share out three rather than five facts about themselves in order for students with disabilities to have more time to process information.
This strategy provides an excellent opportunity for teachers to learn more about the diverse backgrounds and experiences of English learners. Teachers are afforded the opportunity to develop a strong learning community that is anchored in a strong understanding of where students are coming from.
English learners need to listen to teacher explanations, read questions, and model responses and write their own responses while engaging in this activity. In order to support English Learners consider the following modifications:
Modifications:
Explore the "My Name" lesson by 8th grade ELA BetterLesson Master Teacher, Julianne Beebe, to see how her students write a "My Name" poem while reading The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros.
Explore the "Welcome to Biology Class! Getting to Know Each Other Through Poetry" lesson by 9th grade Biology BetterLesson Master Teacher, Maria Laws to see how her students develop "Where I'm From" poems in the beginning of the school year.
Explore the "Where I'm From: Introducing Students to Poetry of Place with Copy Change" lesson by 12th grade ELA BetterLesson Master Teacher Glenda Funk to see how her students write "Where I'm From" poems.
Explore the "It's Opening Day in 8th Grade" lesson by 8th grade BetterLesson Science Master Teacher Lori Knasiak to see her "Who Am I?" graphic organizer.