PROFESSOR PROFILE: DR. JIE ZHANG

By Imani Coaxum

Dr. Jie Zhang is also a professor at The College at Brockport. She got her bachelor’s degree at the Jiangsu Institute of Petrochemical Technology and her doctorate’s degree at Tennessee Technological University.

“Teaching is also a learning process, it helps me grow together with my students.” says Dr. Zhang. She grew up watching her parents be professors and interact with their students in ways that intrigued and inspired her. Inspiring her so much to pursue education herself.

For some educators, they are not only inspired by their love of learning, but they are also inspired by other educators. Every student has a favorite teacher and for Dr. Zhang her parents were her favorite. To see professors, have a passion for what they do rather than for a steady income helps students engage and love learning as well.

Like many other educators, Dr. Zhang believes that social emotional learning is about seeing the student as a whole person. It is not a content-based approach, rather it is an approach that involves understanding why a student would zone out and not pay attention to a lesson, rather than teaching that lesson alone.

“The students come into our classrooms bringing themselves into the classroom with their emotion, with their background, with their family, with their social, with their friend, with everything around them.” Dr. Zhang adds.

When students enter a classroom, they are bringing themselves and their “baggage” with them. The could have had a bad day or a bad incident happen to them right before coming to class. This could make that student zone out of the lesson. Dr. Zhang tackles this challenge of external distractions stopping her students from learning with her very own technique.

“This is the check in sheet, usually I use it in the very beginning of my class, every class, and I will give this out and my students know what they’re going to do. So they rate themselves on a 1-5 scale.”

This scale is rating how her students are doing in their everyday lives. A one rating would mean that they are doing great and are ready to learn. Three meaning that things are okay, but they probably will need to take care of something later. And a five meaning that they are having a really bad day, and most likely will check out of class and not be able to focus because they are dealing with something important. This attention she gives to their emotional being is great; it recognizes that she is there to support her students not just academically, but emotionally.

These techniques being used to support students’ social and emotional well-being is essential to the approach of social emotional learning. It could be as simple as having a share aloud in the beginning of class, allowing students to express themselves and what is on their minds rather than allowing it to bombard them from learning later in the class.