Know+Your+Students

**Important details for incoming SCN 400 instructors: **

 * Know your students. **
 * The students are cohorted. This means that all of your students move from class to class together and will become an extremely tight-knit group.
 * These students have between 4-6 classes throughout the day and generally only a 15 minute break in between.
 * Our teachers-in-training are in a four year program to become teachers. They chose teaching as their career before entering the university and most have a long-term commitment to being teachers. They are exceptionally dedicated and committed to educating youth and expect their courses to prepare them for that goal. Their exceptional goal orientation can be a strong motivation for their performance in class if we are effective in linking the content of the course to their values and goals as teachers. They want to learn as long as it helps them learn to teach.
 * There are K-8 elementary students, English as a second language, special education studies students, and so forth. Take note of the different types of students you have. This is listed on the roster in your MyASU page.
 * There are a few Educational Studies folks you may encounter, they are not going to be teachers in the traditional sense. Instead, they are going to be educational professionals, like tour guides, museum tour or activity hosts, etc.


 * How does the time of this class change the way students will behave? **
 * If you are the first class of the day, the students might still be tired or thinking about their day ahead.
 * If your class falls during the lunch hour, you might have to accommodate students eating their lunch or snacking throughout class. Students tend to have back-to-back classes and little time to eat.
 * If your class falls during the last period of their day, the students might seem restless, looking for the class to finish so that they can go home.
 * It is important to ask the cohort on the first day of class what their schedule is like so that you know from the start how to accommodate their needs and look to keep them engaged.


 * Is the topic of sustainability relevant to K-8 teachers? **
 * This general question will be something you will spend the whole semester illuminating. The answer at the end of the course should be, yes, it is relevant to K-8 teachers! Many of our students struggle to see the connection for the first 3 - 5 weeks.
 * The topic is new and so is the course format. Be patient, enthusiastic and hopeful about sustainability and its connection to the K-8 classroom and the students as citizens.
 * Sustainability affects us all as citizens and this group in particular, as future educators. It is important to emphasize that we are discussing and learning about major world problems and solutions. These issues will need to be address with tomorrow's leaders, decision makers, voters, and politicians ---those who your students will be teaching.
 * In additional to the K-8 classroom, sustainability is a topic that is important for everyone, as citizens and the electorate, to know and learn.


 * How should you put your cohort into groups for in-class activities such as stations? **
 * These students tend to form "cliques" and do group activities with the same students in all classes. This makes grouping difficult. If you let students pick their own groups, they will pick their best friends every time. This doesn’t allow for much variation in the information they are learning from one another. Another big issue can be staying on task. We want to avoid providing the opportunity for students to get off task. To do this, you need to become aware of who usually interacts with whom.
 * Avoid grouping by increasing randomness of groups. Use techniques like drawing numbers/cards to select groups for the day. By doing this you are also modeling good behavior and techniques they may use in their future classrooms.
 * To give the class a little bit of responsibility, test out letting them pick their groups. Tell them that if they prove to be productive in their chosen groups, then they might earn that privilege again. If they do not behave themselves in their chosen groups, then they should not be allowed to pick their groups again the following week.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">For additional recommendations for forming groups in your class, please see the article Better Group Work Experiences by Dr. Maryellen Weimer


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">These are young adults, not elementary students. **
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">These students are on average, 20+ years old. They seek to be treated like adults in class rather than pretending to be 4th graders during a lesson. It is important for the students to see how they can alter an in-class activity to be suitable for elementary students, but still participate in class as adults.


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">What kind of interning are these students doing while in my class? **
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">During their junior year in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, the iTeach program has each student in an interning classroom for the fall and spring semesters.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">They spend one day each week in their assigned classroom with a mentor teacher.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Many of their other courses require the students to do a case study project and write lesson plans to then bring to their internships and teach. We don't require this from our class, but you can certainly encourage them to consider how they might incorporate sustainability into those lesson plans.


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Get-to-know-you activities. **
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Get-to-know-you activities can be very beneficial. Chances are if you are teaching one of the last few periods of the day, the cohort has already done many get-to-know-you activities and have heard the same thing many times. Select a quick, simple, and informative get-to-know-you activity. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;"> A great example might be to ask students to each share the food they would pick to eat if they had to eat themselves out of a 6 foot wall of their favorite food. It is quick, funny, and everyone learns something interesting. As a reminder, these students will already be familiar with one another since they group together as a cohort, but these activities can set a nice tone for the semester and will help them get to know //you//, as well!