The problem.

Some teachers in a middle school were having difficulty developing connecting relationships with students.

What was not working.

Several teachers were having students disrupt class-not always in unsafe ways, but it was becoming difficult to keep students engaged. The result was that teachers were assigning detentions following their school’s conduct plan, but detention rate was not decreasing. These teachers were confused because other team members did not have similar issues with the same students.

What we did.

By using individual in-class coaching and reinforcing social emotional connections to previous learning in other professional development activities, teachers were able to develop a more relational approach to working with students.

The results.

Teachers become more confident in their abilities to connect with students. Such a relational approach helped teachers interact with students in ways that modeled respect and emphasized stronger connections in classroom interactions resulting in fewer disruptions and fewer detentions.