Test Case Study 17-05-2022

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Meet Laura Tollis, an 8th-grade teacher who co-teaches math, social studies, language arts and whose primary focus is supporting students with special needs. She describes how she builds relationships with all the students in her class, and offers tips to connect better with those who have diverse needs and invisible disabilities:

When I set out to build relationships with my students, I first recognize that I need to find space to learn something about them. My favorite saying is, “go slow to go fast.” I spend a lot of time at the beginning of the year just getting to know my students. I don’t really touch the curriculum until the second week of school. It’s so important to create a solid foundation.

Once we’ve gotten through the first month of school, I don’t drop the relationship-building. I implement a “get-to-know-you” moment at the start of the day. This year, I’ve been using a simple question in the morning: “What’s good?” It’s purposefully open-ended and encourages students to tell me what’s going on in their lives. 

They can share whatever they are looking forward to or something that is happening to them. Sometimes it’s as basic as letting me know that they had mac and cheese for lunch, or it can be a much bigger event. It starts class off on a positive note and gives me insight into where my students are coming from.

Reflections

Test 1

It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English.

Test 2

It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English.

Test 3

It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English.

Resources


Along is a digital reflection tool that is designed to help educators make each student feel seen and understood. Along lets students share quick one-one-reflections with their teacher so they can open up about who they are and what’s really on their mind—without peer pressure

About The Author

 

Along is a digital reflection tool that is designed to help educators make each student feel seen and understood. Along lets students share quick one-one-reflections with their teacher so they can open up about who they are and what’s really on their mind—without peer pressure

 

Along is a digital reflection tool that is designed to help educators make each student feel seen and understood. Along lets students share quick one-one-reflections with their teacher so they can open up about who they are and what’s really on their mind—without peer pressure