Rapport is the Connection: Effective Classrooms

We have the foundation, now we need the brick and mortar. Rapport is not an add-on to effective teaching—it is the connection that makes learning possible. Strong rapport builds trust, increases student engagement, and creates classroom environments where students feel safe to take academic and personal risks.

In this episode of The Road to an Effective Classroom Environment, hear how rapport functions as the bridge between instruction and impact. Listeners are guided to examine how everyday interactions, tone, consistency, and presence influence classroom culture and shape how students experience school.

This episode highlights practical ways educators can intentionally build rapport while maintaining high expectations, clear boundaries, and professional authority. From first impressions to daily routines, Dr. McCray-Sarvis discusses how rapport supports classroom management, strengthens relationships, and fosters emotionally supportive learning environments across K–12 settings.

Designed for teachers, instructional coaches, and school leaders, this conversation encourages reflection on the subtle but powerful ways educators communicate care, respect, and belief in students’ potential.

Because effective classrooms are built on connection before correction.

The environment we create determines the learning that takes place. Build it with purpose.

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Good evening, everyone. I am your host, Lashonta, and this is the road to an effective classroom environment. Thank you for joining me on this journey. This is episode three, and I encourage you if you haven't had an opportunity to hear the first two episodes, you can always go back. If you're hearing this episode three for the first time, you can always go back to episodes one and two. They're not in any particular order. Um, they are um the episodes are builders, but I encourage you to go back and listen.

Also, if you have an opportunity, just drop me a line and let me know what you think about the series so far. And at the end of this podcast, I will uh leave you my email address. And uh please, by all means, if you have an opportunity, if you're hearing this on iTunes, leave a comment on Spreaker S-P-R-E-A-K-E-R. I'm also on TuneIn and Google Play Music. But wherever you are hearing this podcast, I do encourage you to leave some comments for me and um drop me a line by email. I'll share that email address at the end of this podcast and just uh tell me how I'm doing.

So we are going to talk about rapport. In the last episode, we talked about building positive relationships with our students in order to have an effective classroom environment. And this podcast is not just for classroom teachers. If you are an educator, period, you can hear this and benefit also from it, and also share it, share it with a friend. But we talked about building relationships first, and now we're going to talk about rapport and what is it, and and how do we build it. And I felt that it was important that we start off with the relationships and just discussing how are some ways, what are those ways in which we can build relationships, positive relationships with our students.

That's the foundation of the learning process is getting to know our students and building that foundation. And so I look at rapport as being the brick and mortar to our building. And so let's get a running definition of what is rapport. Rapport is that close, harmonious relationship in which people understand each other's feelings and ideas and they communicate well. So there are some words that stand out in that definition that I want to discuss. Um the word close and harmonious. When you think of something harmonious, you you think of something that's in sync and in agreement.

Um, you've heard the saying that we can agree to disagree. And I I I like that statement to a certain um to a certain degree. Um having that harmonious relationship and understanding, understanding each other. You can understand someone and not necessarily agree with that person's ideas, but as long as you can come to an agreement that, okay, that's how you feel, or that's how you see things, and I respect that. So I almost would like to add in the word respect with our definition, and then also communication.

How else can we be in harmony unless we communicate with each other? Um, and just knowing what are our likes and dislikes and the do's and don'ts. So we've got a good running definition for rapport. And I also like to think about rapport in this um in this manner. It's like not just the brick and mortar to a building, but also you can think about puzzle pieces and how they connect. So that's another key word for us is connection. We have the relationships, we've we've got the relationships going, the positive relationships going.

Now, how do we make the connections? How do we keep these two groups, educator and students? How do we keep them connected and on the same page? And so there are um a number of ways to build rapport with your students, and I think just going back to the definition we have how we can build rapport, um, one of the key words communication. As a classroom teacher, if you do not already have expectations set aside for your students, how you want them to be in your class from that first day on up until that last day, if you do not communicate those expectations thoroughly, then you are not building those that closeness with your students.

For example, um, we tend to think that students come to us already knowing how to act for us, and that's not the case. Students come to us already having some idea of right and wrong, depending on what grade level you're teaching. But they already know right from wrong, they know do's and don'ts in general about school because they learn that from their parents. Many of them get that from their parents at home before they actually come into the schools. But how that child is supposed to act for you, that is something that you have to teach that child.

The child does not already come in knowing how to act for Miss Lashonta. In order for the child to be successful in my class, I have to teach those expectations. Um, and everything that that child will do in my class, if I have a set of guidelines, I have to communicate that explicitly for the students to have an understanding so that we do have that harmony in class. Um, a term that I learned when I took philosophy when I was in college was tabula rasa, and that literally means blank slate. And we have to see our students as having a blank slate when they come to us.

Now, yes, they already have some things in their toolbox of how to work with adults, and not all of those tools in that toolbox are positive. Some of them have learned some bad habits at home or from around different peers, but we have to see our children as a blank slate coming in, and we are carving out those expectations for them so that they know how to handle us in class, and we also have to learn how to handle them, which goes back to building those relationships. So we have to teach expectations.

We also have to let the children know what our ideals are when it comes to education. What are our ideals when it comes to educating those children in that classroom? What do we see as success? And success cannot just be given a letter grade. Um, in our minds, we may want our students to all have A's in our class, but in reality, that's not going to be the case. You have students who are C students for whatever reasons, whether it's intellect or whether it's motivation and drive, um, you have those students that may never have an A in your class, but you may have where that student moves from a C to a B, and that's success for that student.

So going back, we have to learn our students and know what their ideas of success are as well as share ours. What are our expectations from them? Take the time to look at where the students were the year before. If you have that um that that piece of data, um, no matter what you're teaching, you should be able to pull data on that student. And we sometimes we think that, okay, I was a social studies teacher. So um just because I taught social studies did not mean I could not look at um lexile scores for my students because students have to read in social studies.

So knowing what level the students are helped me to decide what types of material I would share with them, and if the lesson would be differentiated based on where those students were. So we have to look at the data that's available, but also keeping in mind that our children are not just a score, they are not just a number, but that information helps us when it comes to developing lessons and pulling material that will be relevant for them and to help move those students along. So share with the students what your ideas of success are for them and also know what their ideas of success are.

Another way to build rapport is asking the students exactly what is it that you can do to help them to be successful for that school year. And one way to do this is to put up a parking lot area in your classroom, have the students to get a sticky note or have them to write on it, depending on how how small the class size is, having them write on that parking lot exactly what it is that you can do to help them, and then take the opportunity to read that information and use that to help you throughout the school year to help them to be successful, and that is one of those activities that you can do anytime during the year.

You can start off each quarter with that activity because it may change for the students. Our students may they walk in in August or September, and they walk in one way, and by November, December, they may be at in a different place. Whether it's academically, they're in a different place, emotionally. There are a lot of things that can go on with a student between the start of the school year to almost halfway through. So getting into the habit of asking the students, what can I do to help you?

And making sure that that's information that you absorb and that you utilize. Another activity that I think is so powerful and it can be very powerful in your classroom, is asking the students, what do you think makes a great classmate? Now, this still ties in with rapport because having this information for each class that you teach, this is information that will help you make connections with the students and get into the minds of the students. Um, and the way that this looks, you're asking the students, you know, what are some what are some um adjectives to describe a great classmate?

Um, and you're asking them what are some things that a great classmate does. So now you're looking at verbs, and then you want to know what does a great a great classmate say in class, and then the last thing that you look at, you look at the negative last because you want to start off on a positive note, but you look at the negative last, and what is a great classmate not, and you just keep that piece very simple, and um, again, this is something else that you you can put up in your classroom as a parking lot or displayed on your Prometheum board, smart board, and um and asking for those adjectives and let let the students work in groups, they can be in groups in fours and fives or twos and threes.

Let them collaborate first because if you start asking the questions from the students and asking them to raise their hand, you may not get all of the information that you readily need. So, this is an opportunity for you to allow your students to collaborate together and come up with ideas of what they feel a great classmate is, and then this can be something that stays in your room, it's a visual piece that stays in your room so that your students know this is the list that you came up with, and this is what we ex we expect, so it's an expectation list for the students and how they view their classmates and what they want to see and hear from their classmates.

So, again, we're looking at building rapport. How do we make those harmonious connections? The communication is a big piece, but also understanding each other. You may not always agree, and you may be in a situation where let's say you're teaching students who come from a different socioeconomic status than you were brought up in, you may never understand the true struggle that the students may deal with if they're in a lower socioeconomic status. You may not be able to understand it totally, but being able to try to empathize in situations, but also be able to learn about the situations that the students were brought up in helps you understand where your children are coming from.

And that piece is a totally different episode that we will look at down the line and um how we can better uh make connections with our students who may be from a different socioeconomic status than we are. But in looking at the rapport, and to wrap up, we've talked about what rapport is, we've looked at what rapport is, how we can build it, and um giving you a few strategies of what you could use in your classroom and building rapport with your students, letting the students know what your expectations are, and knowing what the expectations are of your students.

So, for the next episode, we're going to look at relevance and how the material in the classroom and making it relevant to our students can create an effective classroom environment. And so this is the end of our episode on On Report. And um, I want to share the email address. My email address is Lashantumber6 at gmail.com. That's L-A-S-H-A-W-N-T-E, the number six at gmail.com. So if you have an opportunity, drop a line and uh let me know how you're liking the episodes so far. Any information that you would like to give to me, you can always send me a line at my email address.

And if you are listening on any of the arenas that I just talked about in the beginning, tune in, speaker, iTunes, please leave me some positive comments and show me some love. Okay, and so I will see you for the next episode in which we will talk about the relevance of the material in class and how that can have an impact on an effective classroom environment. I will see you the next time. Bye bye.