The impact of teachers – building student relationships and nurturing potential

At Teacher, we love hearing from our audience about the positive impact their teaching is having on students in their settings. It’s not just teachers and school leaders that we hear from. Teacher reader and school parent Barbara Vieira contacted the editorial team to share the impact a teacher had on her daughter and her achievements in STEM.

We know effective schools are driven by a deep belief that every student is capable of successful learning and prioritise building and maintaining positive and caring relationships between staff, students, and families. (Australian Council for Educational Research, 2023).  

Parent Barbara Vieira tells Teacher that the impact Digital Technologies teacher Paul Dionysius had on her daughter, Martina, has been significant, thanks to his encouragement, support and deep knowledge of her daughter’s interests and strengths as an individual. 

In an email to the Teacher editorial team, Vieira said: 

Last year, Martina started year 8 [and] needed to pick her electives … I suggested she try Digital Technologies. I thought it might suit the way her mind works.

A few months in, her Digital Technologies teacher Paul Dionysious asked me for a meeting. I wasn't sure what to expect. He told me she was really good at coding. He said since she started coding, she hasn't stopped, she codes during lunch breaks, during every spare moment at school. 

… Everyone is talking about AI replacing jobs, replacing teachers, replacing everything. But what happened with Martina is proof that there are things AI simply cannot replace. AI didn't see Martina. Paul Dionysious did. He didn't just see that she could complete an exercise correctly, but he saw her. ... No algorithm would have pulled me into a meeting and said, ‘Your daughter is really good’. No AI could provide the encouragement and support he did.

Supporting individual students 

We got in touch with Martina’s teacher for year 8 Digital Technologies at Siena Catholic College, Paul Dionysius, to find out more. 

Dionysius – currently Head of Learning Area, Technologies, at Sunshine Coast Grammar School – was Academic Leader of Technologies at Siena Catholic College at the time. He has been a teacher for over 20 years and says Martina was identified, alongside a small number of other female students, as having an aptitude for coding in year 7. 

‘I said to the girls, if you get enough together and after you select Digital Technologies as your elective subject, I'll make an all-girls class [for year 8]. And I went from what would have been about 6 very excited girls, to 23 girls. 

‘I find that with the girls in particular, they're not intimidated by the boys, but they do enjoy working in larger groups of girls. And if they don't think the other girls are going to pick it, then they're not likely to pick it either because they want to work with each other,’ he shares.

Vieira tells Teacher that Paul has supported Martina’s individual skill development in Digital Technologies, particularly coding, but also her confidence and public speaking skills. 

‘He kept challenging her with coding, but he also encouraged her to develop beyond the technical side, for example by learning to present her ideas and communicate what she was creating. I’ve watched Martina go from being a very quiet child to becoming much more confident. She is so engaged and motivated by what she is doing, even when it means stepping outside her comfort zone,’ Vieira says.

‘The impact on Martina’s life has been much broader than coding. She has grown in her technical skills, but also personally, particularly in her confidence. As a parent, seeing your child doing well, wanting to do more, becoming a better overall student, feeling happy and more confident is amazing.’

A student’s perspective

We also asked Martina to reflect on the impact of Dionysius’ teaching from her perspective.

‘I realise how lucky I am to have such a supportive school … and such supportive teachers, and I feel really grateful for that. I’m especially grateful to Mr Dionysius because I really feel that he is the reason I got so involved in Digital Technologies in the first place,’ she tells Teacher.

‘He loves teaching the subject, and he has created a great program where students can learn, try new things and really enjoy being there. … My classmates and I all really enjoy being in the Digital Technologies, and I think that says a lot about the environment he has created for us.

‘The Digital Technologies room is colourful, there are couches, and it doesn’t feel like an ordinary classroom. My friends and I really enjoy being there, whether we are coding, working on something or just spending time there. 

‘He always encouraged me to keep asking, keep trying and keep learning. He also doesn’t just give me the answer. A lot of the time he will ask me another question that makes me think about the problem myself. I think that has helped me become better at looking at an idea … and noticing where there might be a problem or something that could be improved.’

Building strong relationships with students

Dionysius tells Teacher that, for him, deeper relationships with students come from allocating time to get to know them as individuals, outside of class time. 

‘Opening your doors at lunchtime – that’s been a big one for me,’ he explains. 

Originally, Dionysius started opening his classroom up at lunchtime to offer a space for students to be social. He also provided them with game consoles to use. 

‘And the more they're in my room, I can then just have a casual chat while I'm eating my lunch, and they're eating their lunch, and you spend that little bit of extra time during your lunchtime that builds those relationships that transfer into the classroom.

‘And you only have to have the really strong relationship with 3 or 4, and that exponentially increases, because … then you'll start talking with a friend and they'll have similar interests, or similar things in common. And it builds and builds and builds. Just from that small little core group, you can build.’

References

Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER). (2023). School Improvement Tool. Australian Council for Educational Research. https://doi.org/10.37517/978-1-74286-700-7