High-Leverage Practices

Teachers intentionally build and sustain respectful relationships with students in the classroom. Teachers who form strong and connected relationships with students are able to work collaboratively with them and manage power dynamics in ways that increase student participation, engagement, and achievement. Respectful teacher-student relationships are characterized by trust, care, joy, and appreciation of students’ cultures and communities. Teachers develop their relationships in all aspects of their teaching, including small conversations with individuals, notes to students, nonverbal signals, and how they respond to and acknowledge students during lessons.

Teachers use small group work when the learning goals profit from interaction and collaboration among students. To do this, they choose tasks that require and foster collaborative work, provide clear directions that enable groups to work independently, and hold students accountable for collective and individual learning. Teachers use their own time strategically, deliberately choosing which groups to work with, when, and on what. Teachers work to ensure students are positioned as competent among their peers, that patterns of interaction are respectful, and that the collective work of the group uses the strengths of and benefits each student.

Careful and sensitive communication between teachers and families supports student learning. Teachers communicate with families to learn more about children from the people who know them best. Teachers share information about children’s activities, learning, and development. Teachers seek ways to partner with families. Communication may take place in person, in writing, or in phone calls. Every conversation with a family is an opportunity for the teacher to communicate a respectful, open attitude and create a space for a two-way conversation. Teachers must be attentive to considerations of language and culture, caring and valuing of families, and oriented to working with families to support children.

Teachers must actively learn about their particular students in order to design instruction that will meet their needs. This includes being deliberate about trying to understand the cultural norms for communicating and collaborating that prevail in particular communities, how cultural and religious views affect what is considered appropriate in school, and the topics and issues that interest individual students and groups of students. It also means being sensitive about what might be happening in students’ personal lives so as to be able to support students appropriately.