Encourage Student Self-advocacy
Overview
Actively and authentically encouraging all students to seek support, ask questions, and advocate for what they believe in creates a safe space for risk-taking and skill development and supports a Sense of Belonging. Fostering an environment for self-advocacy helps students to develop autonomy for their own learning needs and fosters identity development. Importantly, how students develop the skills needed to advocate, make good choices, and pursue their goals can be influenced by many facets of a student's identity, such as their race, gender, Primary Language, or disability status, as well as the intersection of these and other identities. Providing students with an inclusive learning environment that validates students for who they are can support them in understanding and advocating for their needs.
Example: Use This Strategy in the Classroom
Watch these high school students spend the day at their state capitol to voice their opinions and advocate for their beliefs. Learners are authentically making their voices heard and becoming changemakers in their communities.
Design It into Your Product
Videos are chosen as examples of strategies in action. These choices are not endorsements of the products or evidence of use of research to develop the feature.
Learn how products like GoSoapBox use anonymity to help students feel comfortable asking questions or for help. Students experience fewer barriers to showing that they do not understand something when they can ask questions in a more private manner.
Additional Resources
Additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.
Factors Supported by this Strategy
More Teacher Modeling & Support Strategies
Using language that is accessible and appropriately leveled for each student allows all students to feel successful and participate in learning.
Content that is provided in clear, short chunks can support students' Working Memory and ensure students are directing their Attention to the relevant information.
Building positive and trusting relationships with learners allows them to feel safe; a Sense of Belonging; and that their academic, cognitive, and social and emotional needs are supported.
Teaching students how to systematically evaluate sources prepares them to navigate in an increasingly complex, digital world.
Providing constructive feedback supports students' writing development by letting them know how to improve their writing.
+When students are aware that learning involves effort, mistakes, reflection, and refinement of strategies, they are more resilient when they struggle.
Providing feedback that focuses on the process of developing skills conveys the importance of effort and motivates students to persist when learning.
By talking through their thinking at each step of a process, teachers can model what learning looks like.
Maintaining consistent routines, structures, and supports ensures that students are able to trust and predict what will happen next.
Reading aloud to adolescents models Reading Fluency as texts become more complex and disciplinary in nature and therefore, more difficult to understand.
Using texts to discuss complex emotions and perspectives with students can help them see how they influence behavior and draw their own personal connections.
Giving students voice and choice in their learning is critical for making learning meaningful and relevant to them, an important aspect of promoting Sense of Belonging.
Wait time, or think time, of three or more seconds after posing a question increases how many students volunteer and the length and accuracy of their responses.
