Ben Lev this post might interest you since you are just getting to know a new class tomorrow. Also Craig your classes may enjoy this. This is information that builds bridges with students:
Sometimes, right about this time of year, kids start to think that you don’t like them. But it’s never that simple. Consider: if you are an auditory teacher – and you are if you use CI – and many of your students are visual learners, having been pushed out of their natural learning style over the years by visual teachers in visual buildings with visual textbooks made by visual people), they are obviously not as comfortable as the auditory kids in the classroom and they start to shut down.
So what I recommend to patch up that distance and mistrust with those visual learners (and the auditory and kinesthetic learners who have been pushed out of their natural learning style) is to give them a learning styles inventory and talk about it with them in class as described in previous posts here.
When you tell a kid, “Wow! you tested out as a highly visual learner, with low auditory and low kinesthetic qualities, so obviously this class is going to be more of a challenge for you than a highly auditory learner like Mikey over there! I’m glad I know this now. Since you tested as high visual/ kinesthetic I am going to try to slow down and make myself as clear as I can so that I do a good job of helping you understand. Then we can work together to make sure that you do well in my class. That’s my promise.”