4 Ways of Building Safe Learning Environments for Your Students

The importance of building safe learning environment for your learners is something that cannot be overstated. Safe learning environments translate into comfortable learning environments. They are places where learners feel at home.

1- It's About students
Are your students feeling uneasy about the environment that you've already created? your first step should be to ask them what you could be doing to help them:

• Are you moving from one lesson to another too quickly? Too slowly?
• Are they disengaged from one particular topic?
• Do they like to work by themselves or are they more comfortable breaking down into teams? 

So take steps to change yourself to fit in with how they want to learn first and foremost.

2- Work On Yourself As An Educator:

You can create safe learning environment for children if you also lead by example. If you show kids how important kindness is by taking every opportunity to be kind yourself, they will follow. The reverse is true, however if you are quick to lose your temper, this will set a negative example that will eventually become hard to break from.

3-Celebrate Achievements:

One of the major benefits of safe learning environment is that students will be proud with their work and in themselves. One way for reaching such goal is to skip right to the end result and celebrate their achievements as they are happening. By celebrating all students, you foster an open environment filled with happiness and creativity.

4- Build A Judgment- free Zone

If you ask most adults why they're afraid of public speaking, one of the most common answers that you will get is that they're afraid of being judged. The same concept is true of young students. If they feel like any time they open their mouth to answer a question they might get judged negatively by their peers, they will stop opening themselves up.So to combat this, you need to go out of your way to create an environment free from judgment.let them now that differing opinions are great thing and that being "wrong" isn't a bad thing.

Five Basic Elements of collaborative learning

There are five fundamental elements involved in collaboration learning. In fact these five elements differentiate collaborative learning from other forms of group learning.
Positive Interdependence
It means the group has a clear task or goal  so everyone knows the expected outcome and that the efforts of the group will cause them to either sink or swim together.

• The efforts of each person benefit not only the individual, but also everyone else in the group.
• The key to positive interdependence is committing to personal success as well as the success of every member of the group.

Individual and Group Accountability

The group is accountable for achieving its goals, and each member must be accountable for contributing a fair share of the work toward the group goal. The performance of each individual must be assessed and the results given back to the group.

Interpersonal and small group skills 

It is required to function as part of a group. These are basic teamwork skills.Group members must know how to-and be motivated-provide effective leadership, make decision, build trust, communicate, and manage conflict.

• Completing tasks
• communicating
• Decision making
• Managing conflict
• Appreciating group members

Face-to- Face Promotive Interaction

It means that students promote each other's success by sharing resources. They help, support, encourage, and praise each other's efforts to learn.

Group Processing

Group members need to feel free to communicate openly with each other to express concerns as well as to celebrate accomplishments. The group should regularly discuss how well they are achieving their goals and maintaining effective working relationships.

Additional Elements of Effective Groups:

Effective collaborative teams share the following characteristics:

Full Participation: All team members contribute their time and energy to the project. More importantly, all team members participate in the decision making process.

Trust: Members trust that each member will add value to the project, and members work to ensure that everybody contributes and that appreciation is expressed for different contributions.

Open Communication: Communication is the glue that holds a team together.

Communication is effective when all members:

• Contribute ideas
• Provide feedback constructively.
• Ask for clarification on anything that might be confusing.
• Provide frequent updates.
• Listen to each other carefully.

Top 5 Teaching Strategies

Effective teachers are always on the prowl for new and exciting teaching strategies that will keep their students motivated and engaged.

• 1- Differentiated Instruction: It allows teachers to engage each student by accommodating to their specific learning style. According to Howard Gander Multiple Intelligence theory every person has a different  mind and therefor each person learn and understand information differently. Differentiating instruction offers a way to meet students' needs. One helpful strategy is learning stations. Learning station is designed to enable students with diverse learning needs.
• 2- Cooperative learning: It gives students the opportunity to work with others and see different points of view. Research shows that students learn more effectively when working together and improve self-confidence in students. Jigsaw technique is especially effective because each student is responsible for one another's learning and students find out really quick that each group member has something equally important to contribute to the group in order to make the task a successful one. Students are exposed to and use many skills through this strategy.
• 3- Utilizing Technology in the classroom: is a great way to empower students to stay connected in this technological era. Technology keep students motivated and engaged longer. Some examples of utilizing technology are to create web-based lessons or a multimedia presentations such as video, animation, or some type of graphic, utilizing a tablet or an iPad, participating in an online research project, or even creating a class website. 
• 4- Inquiry- Based instruction: It implies involving students in learning process so they will have a deeper understanding of what they are learning. Such strategy engage students to learn by asking questions, investigating, exploring, and reporting what they see. This process leads students to a deeper understanding of the content that they are learning, which helps them be able to apply these concepts they are learning in new situations.
• 5- Graphic Organizers: are a simple and effective tool to help students brainstorm and organize their thoughts and ideas in a visual presentation. Simply put, they help students organize information so it is easier for them to comprehend.it can be used in lessons to structure writing, brainstorming, planning, problem solving, or decision making. The most popular organizer are the Venn diagram, concept map, KWL chart and T chart.   

The Three Rs

The three Rs are basic skills taught in school reading, writing and arithmetic.

• Reading: is the complex cognitive process of decoding symbols to derive meaning. It is a form of language processing. Reading is  means for language acquisition, communication and sharing information and ideas. Like all languages, it is a complex interaction between text and reading, shaped by prior knowledge, experience, attitude and language community which is culturally and socially situated.
• Writing: is medium of human communication that represents language with signs and symbols for language that utilize a writing system, inscriptions can complement spoken language by creating a durable version of speech that can be stored for future reference or transmitted across distance. In another words, writing is not a language, but a tool used to make languages readable. Writing relies on many structures of speech such as vocabulary, grammar and semantics.
• Arithmetic: is a branch of mathematics that consists of the study of numbers, especially the properties of the traditional operations on them_ addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Arithmetic is an elementary part of number theory and number theory is considered to be one of the top_ level divisions of modern mathematics along with algebra, geometry and analysis. 

Essential Skills and Qualities Every Teacher Needs

1. Enthusiasm

A great teacher is enthusiastic about their job and lesson, and encourages students to share the same passion as they do.

2. Leadership

An effective teacher has the ability to lead and guide her classroom; she can manage a number of different personalities, including misbehaving children, and steer them into the right direction. She leads by example and is an important role model in her students’ lives.

3. Organisation

Teachers have to juggle a number of tasks, from lesson planning to activities and marking. In order to succeed in their role, they are required to have exceptional organisation skills.

4. Respectful

A good teacher sets a respectful tone in her classroom. Students feel safe to share their values and opinions, and their classmates have learnt to be good listeners and respect others’ thoughts.

5. Multitasking

A good teacher needs to have eyes on the back of her head and should be able to monitor all her pupils’ behaviour and keep their attention while completing her class. After the class, she’ll need to plan her following week, as well as create and mark tests and assignments.

6. Teamwork

Part of being a teacher is the ability to work as part of a team, as well as alone. They’ll need to make their students feel like they are part of a team to enhance the learning experience.

 7. Interpersonal Skills

An educator that is inclined towards helping others will create warm relationships that, in turn, boost learning. A pleasant teacher who has an engaging personality creates attentive and enthusiastic students. You will also be adept at handling students that may have learning difficulties or other disabilities that need special attention.

8. Creativity

Teachers need creativity to keep students interested and engaged, especially children that are in primary school. You’ll need to find different ways to keep the class interested and attention levels high – this could be through roleplay or other fun learning activities.

9. Self-Evaluation

To develop professionally and provide quality education, you’ll constantly need to self-evaluate and reinvent yourself. You will have to push your pride aside and analyse where you have gone wrong and what can be improved within your classes.

10. Patience

Patience is key when working with children and teenagers; they won’t all be well-behaved and you’ll need to be understanding when kids start to act out.

11. Critical Thinking

Teachers need to solve a number of different problems, often on a tight deadline. This frequently involves, answering difficult questions on the spot, solving conflicts, creating new lesson plans, teaching games and dealing with other personal issues between pupils or colleagues.

12. Confidence

You can’t be a teacher if you don’t have the confidence to stand at the front of the classroom and talk to your students. You have to be a strong character that can answer questions positively and instil the same self-assurance within your classroom.

13. A Sense of Humour

This isn’t strictly a skill; you either have a sense of humour or you don’t – but having one is super useful if you want to engage with your students. You should be able to have a laugh with them and make the lesson as fun as possible – and students that are happy tend to be more open to learning!

14. Commitment

If you want to be a good educator, you must be committed to your job and your classroom. You need to have the passion to teach and change your pupils’ lives for the better.

How Technology can be used to Improve Learning

The following are ways that technology could be better leveraged to improve learning:     

•  Teachers can design follow-up activities when using technology to evaluate students’ learning and the role technology played in that process.
• With the widespread availability of student databases that are able to track individual progress, teachers are encouraged to identify learning objectives and differentiate instruction based on the needs of their students.
• Whenever teachers attempt to present instruction using technology, they should do so using a channel that is relevant to the objectives, the learning style, mode and the technology selected.
• When evaluating technology-based instruction, there needs to be appropriate evaluation techniques that are in line with the methods of instruction, objectives and the technology.

The Role of Technology in the Educational Process

Although technology is finally being integrated into education, its use for teaching and learning still remains a challenge. Despite the fact that many schools today are privileged to have ready access to technology, trained teachers, and a favorable policy environment, the use of technology in the classroom is still low. Some attribute low levels of technology use in education to the pedagogical beliefs of teachers.

With that said, the potential of technology to enhance learning cannot be overemphasized. The use of technology is something that started a long time ago for students with special needs.  For example, brail machines have been utilized for the visually impaired. In addition, special needs programs that help children with autism use technology to enhance learning. By integrating technology into education, educators aim to engender pedagogical change and address fundamental issues that affect learners with special needs. Technology can therefore be seen as both a tool and a catalyst for change.

Today, technologies used to improve and facilitate learning can be found everywhere. Leaving other contextual factors to the side – such as unequal access to technological innovations and connected technologies across schools and districts – we can only say that we have embraced technology in education when it is used for both teaching and learning. With the incorporation of technology into schools, the main purpose is to change how teachers and students gather, access, analyse, present and transmit information. This can democratize information in classrooms as well as help differentiate instruction, particularly for students with special needs.