Prevention in Classroom Management

Can we conclude that if a teacher is great then the class should not have any classroom management issues to deal with?

I think (and hope) that all those who prepare to become teachers dream to become great teachers!

Obviously that depends on how much, and how well the teacher knows her/his content, and what skills for teaching s/he has.

Creating a warm environment is just as important as planning well the lesson; but these will be done well only if the teacher knows his/her students.

I think my students already know what I will say (and roll their eyes as well :-)), when I stress (and cannot stress enough) that they will have to build a classroom community, to know each individual, and remember that even if they teach a class they have individuals. Each student has a certain level of cognition, who have a physical and behavioral individuality (which can change from one day to the other), and they are emotional beings.

In our teacher preparation students take the Methods course where they learn how to teach in their content area. For that reason I do not stress in this course lesson planning. However I mentioned that feedback is very important. A good feedback looks like a sandwich: what was not as good; what was good; and how to make the not so good to be good. We all agreed that grades are useful since they tell us the level where our performance is, however, we all hate to only receive a paper back with a grade and no feedback at all.

And if we talk about feedback we must talk also about teacher expectations. I had students who needed extra encouragement, support, monitoring, and sometime a little push. I believe that with hard work my students can succeed. The time spent to learn is dependent on how much time each of my students has allocated to study, and how much of that allocated time is actually on task :-)

Rosenthal (1968) draw our attention to the importance of teacher expectations in the classroom with his famous Pygmalion in the Classroom.

Is truly sad to hear any teacher say "that student will never be good of anything."

When this topic comes in discussion all of us are aware that we have individuals with different intelligence, potential, skills, and motivation. And even with the current Race to the Top, NCLB, no teacher will bring every student to perfect score. And no one even asks that. What is asked is to teach the students to reach their best potential! We must have high expectations and realistic ones in the same time.

To reach that potential for every student we must teach for deep understanding, critical thinking, and use authentic instruction/assessment which will give the skills necessary to apply in real life. We should keep in mind the classroom as a community, formed by individuals with different skills, intelligences, and motivation. Differentiated instruction gains more ground and preservice teachers are prepared to modify the elements of instruction to meet students' needs: modify the content; differentiate the process; differentiate the products that result from learning; modify the learning environment; and modify the classroom climate.

Since each student in our classes is an individual, we expect that they will have different motivation to learn, and might think differently about their self-efficacy, self-esteem, and obviously make different attributions of their success and failure (Weiner, 1980). They value or not what they learn, and expect, or not to succeed.

All these differences and individual variables must be taken into account when we design a lesson and when we teach in the classroom. Always expecting that students will be able to perform, structuring activities so each individual can benefit at oen point or other, targeting students' interests and motivations, and helping them take responsibility and value their learning.

Approaches to Classroom Management

We had a very good discussion on what makes a good classroom collaboration between students and teacher.

It seems that the efficiency that a teacher manages the classroom depends on the context. Each class is different and classrooms are a body formed of many individuals and individuality that form one class. The best teachers are the eclectics who chose different methods appropriate for the different students gathered in that class.

Teachers can have four types of power in the classroom.

- referent power - when students like the teacher and the teacher likes and cares about the students

- expert power - based on professional competence. If the teacher is perceived as having the knowledge and skills that will help them acquire that knowledge, and most of all students must value that knowledge and skills.

- legitimate power - is all about the authority of the teacher; or "the teacher said so," "the teacher rules" not as efficient when teaching in secondary schools where adolescents try and sometimes succeed to challenge the authority.

- reward/coercive power - which require consistency in teacher behavior of assigning the reward or punishment, and students must see the connection between their classroom behavior and the reward/punishment, also students must see the reward as being a reward, punishment as being actually a punishment. Rewards can be external or verbal.

Teachers should be careful with rewards and praise. Sometimes praise can be too much (yes, there is such a thing as too much praise).

Schools are expected to produce good citizens who are able to control their behavior, care for others, and make good decision.

With younger children, then we should focus our classroom management on student-directed classroom management. In this model students are responsible to control their behavior and capable if given the opportunity. That way they will become self-directed, responsible, independent, and caring. In the student-directed classroom there is much place for choices. This model seems to be appropriate in elementary classrooms where the teacher and students spend long periods of time together. There is more time for choice and follow up and discussions.

Collaborative management implies the common responsibility of the students and teacher for all that happens in the classroom. The major goals in a collaborative classroom are to develop students that are engaged, successful, respectful, and cooperative. Rules and procedures are developed collaboratively. There are choices but limits as well, there is respect and discussions on the rights for all.

Teacher-directed management will focus on creating a classroom environment where rules and classroom management issues play a minimal role since all students are capable and responsible, and behave in a conventional way. Problems are dealt with at once and fast. So no time is really wasted on managing behavior. However the teacher needs to pay attention to individual differences since they are important when the rules and rewards/punishments are developed.

We once again concluded that classroom management is a matter of the environment and that involves individual classrooms, as well as individual students in the classroom (just like the between vs within in statistical methods :-)). In the same time it is a matter of who the teacher is. More experience always will bring more wisdom, and "too much" experience might bring a bit of rigidity with it as well. We also pointed out that as we grow older the gap between the teacher and students will be larger; and teachers need to keep up to date with new trends in technology as well as music and celebrities. Otherwise it will be rather difficult to design activities that are targeted to students' interests.

As in the video we watched (City Teacher), it is always a good idea to get some advice from expert or master teachers, as well as it is good to have someone supportive in higher power :-)

Understanding classroom misbehavior

In any classroom when a misbehavior happens the teacher usually reacts before pondering and thinking WHY? It is not enough to decide if the situation is one of misbehavior or one that can be ignored. We as teachers should think about WHO and WHY is misbehaving.

In early 60s Bandura conducted the famous experiment of Bobo Doll.

His experiment demonstrates that a child will react in similar situations just as she/he has seen a model react. Since Bandura's experiment many researchers studied television, violence on TV specifically, and the effect on children behavior, with effects on classroom misbehavior.

However, violence on TV is not the only factor affecting adolescents' classroom behavior. Role models are admired and followed without ever meeting the person in real life, and without even (often times) a model would behave as in real life. Should I mention here the "reality shows" which create the illusion of reality and are admired/watched by too many children and adolescents...

Society is changing, values are changing, and school/classroom behavior is changing too.

We are plugged in 24/7 to our smart phones, computers, and TV set. Can I blame my students (one constantly checking his iPhone, the other writing/surfing on his laptop), when first thing when I wake up, or come out of a meeting, or last when I go to bed is the same thing I do: checking for N-time in a day my iPhone/emails. We do not control our gadgets, but our gadgets control our behavior.

Classrooms follow the change in data from the new 2010 Census by becoming more diverse (and that depends on the place the school is on the map. As I look around in my classroom (and Department) I am the "diversity." In summer I teach the diversity course and I completely love it since I have the chance to discuss with students about their experience and share from mine. I imagine how difficult is for my students to develop prejudice-free, non-biased thinking, and to catch themselves when they use the slightest stereotypical thinking when they teach in a classroom. And that is because most of my students are White, born in White neighborhoods, going to school where everyone is White, and not having too many opportunities to be exposed to diversity. And diversity can be of age, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, language, culture, ethnicity, SES, etc.

And what about having students with different needs and motivation? It is right that we can be creative, or defend the weak, and fight for righteousness even if we are hungry, hurt, or in danger.... however, an empty stomach does not really help when we need to concentrate and pay attention at what the teacher delivers in a classroom. Not talking about that each individual has some interests, skills, and beliefs about the particular topics, or content she/he is learning (or supposed to learn) about. Why do we think and even expect that all our students are Renaissance women and men?! We completely forget about what Gardner teaches us that we are not perfect androids but we are very human and quite different, and good at different things.

We all want to belong. Just look at the most popular Facebook. Why would someone need/have 1219 friends (yes, I am one of her friends, lost there among the other 1218!). Children are tuned to their iPone and laptop checking more often Facebook than the face cover of a book! All starve social recognition and self-esteem is carved by the appreciation measured in number of friends and "likes" on Facebook. No wonder cyber-bullying reaches now as far as any internet connection.

My students, the new teachers, will be expected not only to teach the good content, but also to teach the good behavior, and good cognitive and moral thinking, to help children become good citizens who are able to control their behavior, make good/wise decisions, and be compassionate and care for others.

Now that is a good hope, which by the way we do not measure in schools with any standardized test (or any test for that matter!).

Classroom Management and Discipline

I like to start the first class with introductions and play one ice breaking game.

There are many good icebreakers and I use couple based on who are the students in the class.

If most of students are new and do not know each other I like to ask them to meet their peers and fill a chart: Name, how many siblings, favorite color, favorite sport to play or watch, hobby, favorite food, one funny thing about yourself, etc. The list can be longer or shorter. If there are many students in a class the list should be shorter so students can meet as many possible colleagues.

But this semester since most of the students know each other (some are in their last semester in the program completing their teaching practicum; others complete this course before their teaching practicum), I used 2-true + 1-lie.

Each student had to tell two true things about self and one lie. The listener was to guess which is the lie and tally how many colleagues has met and how many lies were guessed.

After any ice breaker game students should present shortly themselves, as well as the teacher.

Our textbook authors James Levin & James F. Nolan state that "A discipline problem exists whenever a behavior interferes with the teaching act, interferes with the rights of others to learn, is psychologically or physically unsafe, or destroys property."

We all agreed to these criteria for discipline problems, and groups of students presented by role play several examples of discipline problems, either invented or experienced in the classroom.

As we discussed the examples we agreed that is very important to think about the person who commits the discipline problem. At times the behavior can or will not be a discipline problem as the teacher evaluates it thinking about who the student is.

Say a student misbehaves by being obnoxious in the class, but that student previous classes was always a good student. Might be the most appropriate would be to talk personally and in private with that student, instead of making it a classroom public issue.

There is a fine line between what books teach us to do and what we should do in a particular situation. The most important in classroom management is for the teacher to create a rapport with the students in the class. And never generalize. Students are unique individuals and such they are (just like the teacher) beings that are a physical being, a cognitive, and emotional being, and they behave according to what they feel, think, or react at. The teacher should never generalize first before thinking who is the person who misbehaves, and why might misbehave?

We also learned that we should avoid giving good students as example. No one likes to be on the spot and especially for being good. Later bullying and mocking might follow as a consequence.

Being human and being calm is the most important when we have rebels in the classroom. Not giving in to power struggles, and treating everyone with dignity and trust.