Launching Pedagogical Relationships on the First Day of School: Teacher Strategies for Developing Disciplinary Learning Communities

• In Event: Roundtable Session 25
  In Roundtable Session: Intersections of Theory, Belief, and Pedagogical Practice in the Classroom

Abstract

This paper examines how three high school social science teachers started their respective classrooms communities on the first day of school. The paper demonstrates the ways teachers launch and begin to enact their vision of the kinds of pedagogical relationships they hope to develop with their students. The three teachers deployed different orienting strategies that illustrate alternate channels with which to address a central dilemma of teaching: how to begin a course and shape the classroom community in a way that encourages positive learning trajectories. Analyzing such teacher moves reveals differences among the three teachers that potentially have consequences for students’ opportunities to learn disciplinary literacy.

Author

• Brian Girard, The College of New Jersey