3 Ways Educators Can Build Resilience Within The Classroom

Teachers are the backbone of our future generation. They play a big role in nurturing young learners with important skills and cultivate resilience within them.

As is often the case with young learners though, learning to tackle challenges in the classroom can prove to be quite difficult for some. Here are 3 simple tips educators can use to build resilience within the classroom. Let’s get started!

What Is Resilience and Why Is It Vital in The Classroom Setting?

 Resilience is the ability to adapt and cope in the face of adversity. It is a crucial life skill that helps us manage stress, overcome challenges, and build positive relationships. It also forms the core of the framework used to model 21st century competencies.

The ability to bounce back from setbacks and continue working towards goals will shape children’s attitude towards learning in the classroom. 

Resilient children are also more likely to exhibit positive social behaviors and have better interpersonal skills. As a result, they develop important social skills from a younger age. By fostering resilience in the classroom, we enable earlier development so they can enjoy a compounding effect later on in life.

Here are the 3 Ways Educators Can Build Resilience Within the Classroom

1. Create A Safe and Supportive Environment

 First and foremost, educators need to create a safe and supportive environment within the classroom. It means that they should be open and honest with their students and provide them with freedom where they feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and feelings. This will go a long way in making them feel confident in expounding the issues they face in detail. It is also essential for educators to model resilience themselves. By introducing positive coping skills, teachers can better equip their students to overcome challenges.

Furthermore, research has also found that problem-oriented coping habits can have splendid effects on student wellbeing, so do give it a try!

2. Promote Self-Care Habits

  Another way educators can build resilience in the classroom is by promoting self-care habits. It means teaching students how to take care of themselves physically, emotionally, and mentally. When students know how to take care of themselves, they’re better able to cope with stress and adversity.

Here are some pointers from Harvard University. The techniques advocated such as the Pomodoro are very much applicable in the K-12 space. Mix and match to find the best fit for your class!

3. Self Reflection

 One last tip, arguably also the most important for building student motivation, is enabling space for reflection. Ample research have suggested correlations between self-reflection and motivation.

How can you implement well-meaning self reflective assessments?

• Make it inclusive and object oriented

Think of something that happens to students in general. This keeps it inclusive. For example, you could focus your prompt on a scenario where students had to help someone in need. From there, get down to the nitty details. How did helping that person make them feel? Was there something they might have missed out or could have done better at instead?

• Use online tools to record reflections

There are a variety of ways to record reflections in various multimedia formats. A good free journal option is Penzu. You can also easily find other options that host media such as video, or look towards integrated student mastery solutions such as our Student Mastery Portal.

• Mutual criticism

Encourage your students to craft positive criticism of their peers’ work! This helps recipients learn to channel feedback to bolster their learning. Alternatively, you can also encourage students to submit “artefacts” and have the class discuss them. There are so many ways you can do this – offline or otherwise. Other than our Student Mastery Portal, there are also a plethora of free online exhibitions you can invite students to in order to cultivate the spirit of critical thinking. 

Conclusion

 So, there you have it! That’s three ways that educators can build resilience within the classroom. We hope you found this blog post helpful, and we encourage you to start implementing these strategies in your classroom today.