With the academic performance of students in the United States continuing to decline, the importance of strong teacher leadership in the classroom is imperative. Teacher-student relationships are shown to be integral for improving student performance and academic achievement. Building a positive classroom environment and being purposeful in connecting with individual students helps foster trust in a teacher-student relationship. This action research looks at a particular method, “check-and-connect”, as an intervention aimed at meeting with students individually in order to ask a specific set of questions designed to build the teacher-student relationship.
This action research utilized a quasi-experimental AB design due to the inability to utilize a true random participant selection. Once a week the “check-and-connect” intervention was conducted consisting of four specific questions asked to individual students. Grades and attendance were used to evaluate the impacts of the intervention, as well as, weekly reflections captured by the classroom teacher.
Findings suggest the intervention had a significant impact on student grades, while attendance showed no such effect. These results demonstrate that interactions between teachers and students matter and have an impact on academic performance.
In this action research, this targeted intervention was an original project designed for a specific classroom, with the intention of being something that could be used in classrooms around the world.
