Connect

What it means:

Establish strong relationships with students and families to cultivate a culture of learning and respect.

More Detail

Connecting with students and families to cultivate a culture of learning includes the following:

- Impart a collective vision that all students can succeed
- Build positive, genuine individual relationships
  - Proactively, positively engage with students and families
  - Respect diversity across all lines of identity
- Communicate student learning information regularly
  - Initiate positive, constructive, and helpful dialogue
- Motivate everyone to do their best
  - Foster trust and joy: be trustworthy and joyful
  - Celebrate achievements!
See a one-page Instructional Excellence Summary covering all the key elements.

Videos—For Teachers & Multi-Classroom Leaders

Watch these short videos of educators discussing and demonstrating the elements of Connect, organized by action:

General

Morning Meetings Strengthen
Class Culture

Sharing life experiences through whole-group
morning meetings helps build genuine
relationships with students, MCL Tonya Reaves
says.

Classroom Meetings Build Teacher-
Student, Student-Student Bonds

MCL Sean Carberry on the importance of
classroom meetings that build collaborative,
comfortable, supportive classrooms in which
each student feels a vested interest in their
classmates' feelings and success.

Analyze Parents’ Needs to Create
Worthwhile Family Events

Connect with parents through events that meet
their needs and interests, MCL Kellie Brotherton says.

Impart a collective vision that all students can succeed

Demonstrate Faith That Students
Can Meet High Expectations

Students feel respected and capable when
given appropriately challenging work, MCL
Hadley Moore says.

To Cultivate a Culture of Learning,
Design an Inquisitive Class

Design a class focused on critical thinking,
Blended-Learning Teacher Scott Nolt says.

Build positive, genuine individual relationships

Back High Expectations with
Steadfast Support

Master Reach Teacher Jimmel Williams holds
students to high expectations balanced with
unwavering support.

Connect with Parents to
Understand Students

MCL Russ Stanton connects with parents and
uses other simple methods to understand his
students and their needs.

Incorporate Student Interests Into
Lessons to Build Bonds

Engage students in their learning by making
personal connections within the instruction,
MCL Stan Whalen says.

Forge Student Connections and
Personalization Through Blended-
Learning Flexibility

Using the flexibility of a blended-learning setting,
teacher Scott Nolt says, he can work more closely
with each student.

Help Students Start Fresh After
Bad Days to Build Trust

Let students start fresh to help build strong
relationships, MCL Kellie Brotherton says.

Personalize Lessons to Strengthen
Relationships and Learning

By personalizing lessons and developing strong
relationships with families, teachers gain students’
trust that can lead to academic growth, MCL
Sydney Mboob says.

Proactively, positively engage with
students

Classroom meetings help to form bonds with your
students and build a community of learners, say
Katie McAuliffe, a fourth-grade teacher, and her
MCL Sean Carberry.

Communicate student learning information regularly

Engage Parents Through Ongoing
Communication

MCL Kathryn Smith explains her efforts to
show parents how they can best help their
children learn, and celebrate their successes.

Communicate with Parents to Avoid
Summer Slide

MCL Jacqueline Smith explains a strategy to
improve parent communication and aid student
learning over the summer.

Motivate everyone to do their best

Celebrate Student Success

MCL Fred Hoffmann describes how his school
recognizes student achievements.

Create a Welcoming Classroom
Environment

Set up your classroom to make it a place that
fosters trust and joy, says MCL Fred Hoffmann.

Show Struggling Students You
Notice Them

“Students notice when you notice them,”
MCL Ellen Rayburn says, explaining how she wins
students’ trust to move past their learning deficits.

Discussion Questions

Use these discussion questions to help guide your instructional team through the elements of Connect:

Which actions in this element of instructional excellence are strengths for you or your team?
Which actions in this element of instructional excellence are weaknesses for you or your team? Think about actions you never take, fail to take as often as needed, or do not take as well as needed to achieve strong learning growth consistently.
What one to three specific changes will you or your team make to use your strengths more often or more consistently and improve weaknesses in the coming months?
Make a brief action plan with specific goals, roles, and time by which you will make specific changes!
Did your changes produce better learning results? If so, keep them. If not, think again about what other changes to make!

Study Guide

See this printable study guide with discussion questions and real examples from educators:

For Multi-Classroom Leaders—Key Element of Instructional Excellence: Connect [pdf]

Instructional Excellence Support Tools

Use this tool and action list to guide and support your teachers:

Instructional Excellence Action List: Connect with Students & Families [Word]—print a copy of this detailed, checkable action list for each teacher you lead
Instructional Excellence Support Guide Overview and Support Tool [Word]—use this tool to record observations, provide feedback, and identify next steps

Other Developmental Resources

See the following developmental resources, provided by other organizations, related to the elements of Connect:

General Resources: Connect with students and families to cultivate a culture of learning

Quick Resources:

Teaching Channel: Class Culture, including how to create a vibrant and engaging culture (video)

Papers & Books:

ASCD: How To Create A Culture of Achievement in Your School and Classroom (book)

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (book)

Impart a collective vision that all students can succeed

Quick Resources:

Edutopia: Teachers, What’s Your Vision? By Elena Aguilar (short article)

Teach Like a Champion, Doug Lemov’s Field Notes: Joaquin Hernandez: The moves that build a culture of high expectations in Seth Healey’s classroom (video)

Papers & Books:

Teach Like a Champion, Field Guide 2.0 (book)

Teaching As Leadership: The Highly Effective Teacher’s Guide to Closing the Achievement Gap (book)

Build positive, genuine individual relationships

Quick Resources:

TED Talks Education: Every Kid Needs A Champion by Rita Pierson (video)

Teaching Channel: How Do I Build Positive Relationships with Students? (videos)

CT3: 10 Outside the Box Strategies Beyond A Student Survey (short article)

This Simple Survey Could Help Close The Achievement Gap (short article)

Papers & Books:

ACSD: Seven Strategies for Building Positive Classrooms (book)

Respect diversity across all lines of identity

Quick Resources:

Mid-Atlantic Equity Center: Equity Audit Materials, Criteria for an Equitable School, Criteria for an Equitable Classroom, and Teacher Behaviors that Encourage Student Persistence (tools)

Tripod: Teacher Toolkit for Tripod’s 7Cs ™ (framework)

Teaching Tolerance, A Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center: Classroom Culture (tools)

Teaching For Change Books: Guide for Selecting Anti-Bias Children’s Books (short article)

GLSEN: Inclusion and Respect, Resources for Educators (framework, videos, guides, templates, lesson plans)

Understood.org, Partnership with 15 nonprofit partners including National Center for Learning Disabilities (website, tools, frameworks, short articles, etc.)

Learner Positioning Systems, Digital Promise (tools)

Papers & Books:

The Achievement Gap Institute at Harvard University: The Influence of Teaching, Beyond Standardized Test Scores: Engagement, Mindsets, and Agency (report)

Every Day Anti Racism, Getting Real About Race in School (book)

Equity Literacy For All (Gorski), Educational Leadership (short article)

Reading Diversity, Teaching Tolerance (tools)

Other People’s Children by Lisa Delpit (book)

20 judgements a teacher makes in 1 minute and 28 seconds, The Hechinger Report (short article)

Communicate student learning information regularly

Quick Resources:

Phoning Parents: High-Leverage Moves to Transform Your Classroom & Restore Your Sanity (book excerpt)

Match Mini: Making Parent Phone Calls (short tutorial)

Teaching Channel: New Teacher Survival Guide Parent Teacher Conferences (video)

KQED/Mindshift: Why Students Should Take the Lead in Parent Teachers Conferences (short article)

Tech Tools:

Class Pager: A tool to engage your students and families with polls, exit tickets, after-class reminders, and more – delivered to each student or parent on their phone or tablet (tool)

Papers & Books:

Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness (Kraft, M.A. & Dougherty, S.M): The Effect of Teacher-Family Communication on Student Engagement: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment (paper)

Partnering with Parents to Ask the Right Questions: A Powerful Strategy for Strengthening School-Family Partnerships (book)

Reaching Out to Latino Families of English Language Learners (book)