Get to know your students. It’s important to create a collaborative classroom community. For example, there is a middle school in St. Paul, Minn. where the previous principal did not allow teachers to open a textbook for the entire first week of school so the focus could be getting to know the students. Furthermore, there was a teacher in that school that had students create their own PowerPoint autobiographies. This brought their knowledge, experiences, skills and values into the classroom, which is all a part of an asset-based or strength-based approach to learning.