Connecting with Students: Strategies for Building Rapport with Urban Learners

by Crystal Higgs

Connecting with Strategies for Building Rapport with Urban Learners focuses on how educators can efficiently establish ongoing rapport with each student through three simple Seeing beyond barriers, sharing their intentions, and showing their "face". Chapter details are narrated through anecdotal experiences, confirmed by research, and seconded by actual urban learners. Educators are prompted to consistently reflect on their classroom practices and implement new strategies and techniques. This text will provide immediate strategies and techniques to build relational capacity in the urban classroom, so that frustration levels are lowered, classroom management is enhanced and academic deficiencies can be addressed. The content of the text is delivered in a multi-genre format. Within the narration there are several true anecdotes, analogies, extended metaphors, dialogue, and genuine student reflections on teaching.

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Crystal Higgs  attended an urban elementary, middle, and high school located in the eleventh largest school district in the nation, Orange County Public Schools, where she now teaches. During her quest to provide the best instruction for her urban students, she received her Masters of Science in Urban Studies Education and her Educational Specialist Degree in English from Nova Southeastern University in Davie, Florida.

Reviews

[Crystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book as a First Reads giveaway winner and then unfortunately life got in the way of me siting down and reading it. The first part is about recognizing barriers, before you even meet the students. Higgs offers insight about potential barriers for urban learners, and I think the questions and activities she has built into these chapters are good for getting people to start thinking about contexts, something that is important to me as a community psychologist. In particular, I liked the strategies for responding to students.

Part two is the most helpful, I think, because it talks about how we as teachers can really have an impact on our students. While it is important to maintain a professional relationship with students, I think too many teachers are afraid of a close relationship, and instead professional means distant.

Finally, part three discusses intentions, specifically letting students know what your intentions are. Most of us want to teach because we want to help, develop, and inspire students. We have to make that known in our classrooms if we want to succeed, as there is often distrust between students and teachers, and they are always judging us.

Each section gives ideas on what to do before class and once class starts, and there are plenty of real life examples to highlight various ideas. I also recommend her reflection exercises. Overall, I think this is an easy but fairly compelling read that people who are not familiar with urban environments should look into.