Rachel Sarnoff

Even here, however, the affective responses of self-efficacy and belonging remained distinct, suggesting that these were two separate feelings to build in students through complimentary, but different classroom actions and or experiences. When I chose self-efficacy to focus on for this project, I selected one affect, thinking that meant that I would be not exploring the other at this time. Instead, however, I now realize that not only do belonging and self-efficacy stem from similar experiences, but they also reinforce each other. The somatic and emotional states discussed in this paper on self-efficacy are largely demonstrative of a sense of belonging, and vice-versa.

Reflecting back on my practice in this way also reaffirms the values that are essential to me not only in a classroom, but in a school’s culture overall. During this time when I am seeking out the right fit for the school in which I can begin my career as an educator, this has confirmed for me the importance of finding an environment in which all students are not only expected to succeed, but also given appropriate supports to achieve success; the community celebrates each others’ success; teachers and students give praise genuinely and generously; and students feel safe - to be themselves, to take risks, and to make mistakes and learn from them. These will serve as my primary selection criteria as I choose a school for myself, for I believe that these are not only elements of a great environment for my students, but also the conditions that I need in order to feel that I have the greatest chance to succeed, too!

As I look ahead to my future classroom, I believe that this framework for cultivating a sense of self-efficacy in my students can provide a relatively straightforward reminder of essential actions I can take to encourage the feelings and behaviors that I hope for in my students. As demonstrated in this project, I have begun to explore some actions within each area that are already promising in their outcomes, and yet I hope that there are countless additional ways that I will discover. For example, one aspect of establishing a sense of safety in my classroom that I have been thinking about recently is how I respond to moments of student conflict and unkindness. I have been complicating my previous thoughts about behavioral corrections by considering the ways that my responses affect both the “perpetrator” as well as everyone else in the class. In particular, it is important to me that my response to misbehavior both teaches students what they should and should not do, but also shows students that I am watching out for them and will speak up on their behalf. When the student interviewed said that she feels safe because the teachers do not let her feelings get hurt (Artifact 12), she spoke to this important aspect of behavioral corrections. As I continue to develop and refine my classroom management techniques, I will contemplate this, and many other questions further in order to create a sense of safety for all students in my classroom.

It is important for me to acknowledge that all of my teaching this year happened under the auspices of my generous Classroom Mentors, and to situate all of my actions and my students' feelings and behaviors within the contexts of the classroom environments that they established. I have chosen to focus this project on my own instruction of, and interactions with, students, but these have not occured in a vaccum and the styles and structures of my mentors have greatly influenced everything that my students and I have done. I am eager to continue this exploration next year as I take the role of the lead teacher and will both borrow from, and react to, some of what I have learned from my mentors. A classroom structure that I will adopt from my current classroom that I believe has particularly enabled the cultivation of self-efficacy is circle time (morning and closing meetings). As presented in Denton and Kreite's The first Six Weeks of School, Morning Meeting “serves as a transition from home to school, helps children feel welcome and known, sets the tone for the day, creates a climate of trust, increases students’ confidence and investment in learning, provides a meaningful context for teaching and practicing academic skills, encourages cooperation and inclusion, and improves children’s communication skills” (2005, p. 15).  Indeed, in our classroom, in addition to adding predictability to our day (which, as previously discussed, I find to be essential) these meetings provided the opportunity to talk about important classroom-culture related issues regularly, such that they did not just need to come up in moments of crisis. Similarly, they gave me the chance to ask students check-in questions without "cause". In the past I may have thought that this would be a given, that teachers would regularly take the pulse of individual students and the group as a whole, however I have also had the experience this year of a room in which these circles did not happen, and neither did any sort of emotional check in unless a significant problem called for it. I hope/believe this would never be the case in my classroom, and yet it also brought my attention to the fact that these conversations should be built into the school day in intentional ways, and not taken for granted.

Ultimately, a teacher must juggle multiple priorities in the course of a school day/week/year and it is hard to fit everything in to the time allotted. Based on my research, learning, and now teaching experiences, however, building up students' belief in their own ability to succeed is a foundational goal to prioritize. Luckily, too, the elements of teaching that cultivate a student's sense of self-efficacy also have numerous other positive outcomes. Therefore in order to cultivate self-efficacy in my students, I will continue to seek ways to 1) facilitate mastery experiences, 2) enable situations in which students see their peers achieving success, 3) give ample encouragement and praise, and, last but certainly not least, 4) prioritize the physical and emotional safety of all students in my classroom.