Student/Teacher Relationships and Teaching Life Skills

I have had numerous ideas for my thesis over the last six months.  There have been many things I have learned, or experienced leading me to question certain things, and giving me the desire to research them further. I have debated topics back and forth and honestly, am still a tad on the fence. 

The topics that interest me are student-teacher relationships, the ways in which they are cultivated through classroom community, and how teachers can teach life-long skills (ie: teamwork, critical thinking, problem solving, etc.) within the academic content to prepare students to be independent, successful adults.  I feel that with strict content standards, important skills may not be taught as much as they should be.  In my desire to research this, I want to see how teachers incorporate much needed skills into their teaching while still meeting grade level content standards.

My literature review topic was broad. In an attempt to combine my interests, I chose to look at attachment theory as the overarching concept.  In looking at ways teachers build relationships with students, I discuss the growth mindset, care, and dialogue.  The growth mindset is the most interesting to me.  We have discussed care and dialogue at length, but I see so much more fixed mindset teaching and interactions than I see the growth mindset.  I want to be an educator that utilizes the growth mindset to teach students to value hard work, not always the end result.  In my literature review, I also link teaching methods to relationship building.  Growth mindset is discussed with problem-based learning.  Problem-based learning really intrigues me.  I never experienced it as a student (except maybe in this program..).  Care is connected to experiential learning.  Experiential education is something I hope to use as an educator for any subject, as much as possible. Project GLAD is mentioned with dialogue.  It is not a super new project, yet it is becoming more popular as more research has been done.  The CT I will be working with this fall is a certified trainer for Project GLAD so I will experience it first hand. (I have worked with her and her partner before so I am already familiar with some of the teaching strategies.)

           I wonder if I should cut down my thesis to less?  Maybe narrow it down to the growth mindset in writer’s workshop? Or maybe growth mindset and project GLAD since my CT? I am interested in all of the ways mentioned above to build relationships and teaching strategies.  This program has allowed me to question teaching in a way I have never looked at it, and I want to use my thesis and research to help me be the teacher that I really want to be…