Discipline and classroom management are among the topics teachers mention most often when they are asked what they would like to have seen more completely covered in their training programs. The concept of classroom management is broader and more important than the concept of discipline. Classroom management refers to the activities that teachers perform to enhance academic learning time by making activities flow smoothly, so that students can remain actively involved in learning tasks without diverting time to nonproductive activities. Preventing or controlling student misbehavior is only one of several important classroom management activities that a successful teacher must perform. There is no doubt, however, that the two concepts are closely related: effective classroom managers use teaching methods that prevent disruptive behavior. This chapter will discuss both topics, integrating them with each other as well as with other topics discussed in this book.

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

1. Describe the relationship between academic learning time and classroom management.

2. Describe specific strategies for preventing the loss of academic learning time:

 

a. Fully using the time period scheduled for an instructional activity.

b. Avoiding interruptions.

c. Handling routines smoothly and quickly.

d. Minimizing time spent solving discipline problems.

e. Managing transitions.

f. Overlapping.

g. Maintaining momentum and smoothness of instruction.

h. Maintaining group focus during both group work and individual work.

3. Describe the role of with-it-ness in classroom management.

4. Describe effective guidelines for starting a year or semester most effectively.

5. Describe the principle of least intervention and its relationship to managing minor classroom misbehavior.

6. Describe effective strategies for developing, implementing, and enforcing rules in a classroom.

7. Describe the role of behavior modification in minimizing classroom misbehavior.

8. Describe the role of freedom and emotional climate with regard to classroom behavior.

9. Describe the role of humor in managing classroom behavior.

10. Describe the role of cooperative learning in managing classroom behavior.

11. Describe strategies for supporting self-regulation among students to maintain effective on-task behavior.

12. Discuss the degree to which teachers themselves have control over the characteristics that would make them more capable of maintaining effective classroom discipline.

 

Putting This Chapter in Perspective: Previous chapters have described characteristics of learners, principles of instruction, and principles of behavior management. The present chapter focuses on combining these into effective strategies for classroom management.

 

Note that the precise set of strategies adopted by individual teachers to manage their classrooms and to solve discipline problems will be a matter of personal style. It is not reasonable or desirable to expect a large number of diverse readers to read this chapter and to unanimously adopt a single set of management strategies. The desirable outcome is that every teacher should have a thorough understanding of the principles of classroom management, and thereby develop a rationale for integrating these principles with his or her personal style. There are many good ways to manage a classroom and to solve discipline problems. The most important general principle is for the teacher to do things for a good reason.

Online Links:
Classroom Management

Educational Time Factors by Kathleen Cotton and Karen Reed Wikelund.

 

This is an exceptionally thorough analysis (with references) of the use of time as part of the instructional process. This 1989 article is online at this web site:

 

 

http://www.nwrel.org/scpd/sirs/4/cu8.html

 

 

 

 

Introduction

Jones and Jones (1989) list five major factors or skill areas associated with effective classroom management:

1. Classroom management should be based on a solid understanding of current research and theory in classroom management and on students' personal and psychological needs.

2. Classroom management depends on establishing positive teacher-student and peer relationships that help meet students' basic psychological needs.

3. Classroom management involves using instructional methods that facilitate optimal learning by responding to the academic needs of individual students and the classroom group.

4. Classroom management involves using organizational and group management methods that maximize on-task student behavior.

5. Classroom management involves the ability to use a wide range of counseling and behavioral methods that involve students in examining and correcting their inappropriate behavior.

 

As you were reading the preceding list, it should have been obvious that a major rule of classroom management can be summarized as follows: Do a good job of teaching by applying all the other principles discussed in this book. Nevertheless, there is a certain degree of tension between effective management and effective instruction. Teachers often find themselves emphasizing one of these factors at the expense of the other, with unfortunate results. For example, some teachers emphasize management by giving their students lectures and seatwork that focus on rote learning, because these activities are easier to manage. The usual result is less effective instruction. Doyle (1986) has nicely summarized the nature of this problem and its solution:

...the solution to the tension between management and instruction may require a greater emphasis on management. In other words, solving the instructional problems of low ability students cannot be done by de-emphasizing management or by designing more complex instructional arrangements for the classroom. Indeed, such "solutions" are likely to increase the problems they are designed to rectify. A more appropriate answer to the problem would seem to involve improved knowledge and training in management so that teachers can be free to concentrate on instructional solutions to learning problems. (p. 14)

Classroom Management can be viewed simply as a specific instance of management in general. At the most general level, management of a classroom requires the same basic strategies and skills as management of a school, of a restaurant, of a small business, or of a baseball team. In each case the effective manager is a person who coordinates the acquisition and use of the materials and personnel necessary to produce a product or outcome.

A leading management theorist (Kanter, 1989) has stated that managers in extremely productive organizations nowadays tend to view themselves as "synergy czars" - that is, they manage working conditions in such a way as to workers to link with other workers to solve problems faced by the organization. Likewise, we can view successful classroom management as depending on how well teachers can orchestrate collaborative learning and empower students to solve problems and to achieve important outcomes.

One of the most prominent contemporary management theorists (Ouchi, 1981) has pointed out that large businesses and industries have begun a shift away from Type A to Type Z organizations. Type A organizations, which are useful in some situations and for some tasks, centralize control and maintain differences in status between workers and managers and among levels of management. Type Z organizations, on the other hand, rely on effective communication and persuasion to influence the direction of employee activities, and they reduce differences in status of the members of the organization. Type Z organizations emphasize as much decision making as possible by the participants themselves. Noneducational organizations have moved toward Type Z management not out of concern for the rights of employees or social justice, but because the shift usually leads to higher levels of productivity.

If these ideas were applied to classrooms, Type A teachers would be the ones who would make nearly all the important decisions, and students would follow instructions. Teachers would identify problems and prescribe solutions. IN Type Z classrooms teachers would devote their energies to helping students find greater meaning in their work, to meet higher-level needs through their schoolwork, and to develop their study skills while mastering objectives that they view as important. There is nothing inherently evil about Type A classrooms. They may be useful in some situations; but in other instances they are destined to reduce productivity.

Likewise, the theory of Total Quality Management states that...

The preceding discussion of management theory would not appear out of place in a textbook on educational administration: the pertinence of management theory for administrators and department heads is obvious. But why discuss it in an educational psychology book? The point is that all educators - including classroom teachers - can benefit from applying management theory. It is possible (and useful) to analyze the principles of classroom management discussed in this chapter in terms of the preceding and other theories of management. Educators at all levels can apply to their educational practice insights gained from their successful experiences managing other activities or being managed in other fields. Of course, it is important not to push this analogy too far; there are many ways in which classrooms differ from businesses (Kohn, 1993).

(For another description of how management strategies influence instruction, see the box on page xxx in the Motivation chapter of this book.)

ALT and Classroom Management

As we discussed in Chapter 2, academic learning time is one of the strongest factors contributing to student achievement. Effective use of time, therefore, is an important aspect of classroom management. Teachers can minimize the loss of academic learning time by planning in advance and by helping their students make careful plans of their own. In addition, spending time at the beginning of a unit of instruction to set tasks up properly will often result in an overall savings of time. As Benjamin Franklin once said, spending a small amount of extra time at the planning stage may save a large amount of time later. The following guidelines focus on specific areas in which planning is important.

 

1. Minimize waste time.

 

 

a. Don't spend class time dealing with topics that common sense would define as a waste of time. Does it really sound useful for students to sit quietly with nothing to do while the teacher spends time performing a clerical task that could have been performed at a different time? Would we expect a business to make money if the employees routinely spent fifteen minutes out of every hour talking idly while the management decided what to do next? Teachers often waste time through inefficiency in collecting or returning assignments, giving directions, and in performing other routine but necessary classroom activities. The obvious but important rule is to know what needs to be done during a class session, to plan properly how to do it, and to follow the resulting well-designed plans.

b. Avoid starting late and finishing early.

 

 

2. Give directions prior to tasks, so that students can complete these tasks correctly and efficiently.

 

 

a. Keep directions to a minimum and keep them simple and sequential. Think tasks through ahead of time, and give the students the directions they need to complete the tasks. Directions should be simple but complete. By recalling or examining the directions, students at any step should be able to focus their attention on the next task that they should perform. It is important that the directions should describe the same steps the students are expected to follow.

Note: This guideline does not mean that teachers should constantly "spoon feed" students by giving petty instructions on every little detail of every task they perform, leaving no room for student initiative and creativity. In some cases a little confusion may be a good thing - if students are motivated to overcome the confusion. In some cases, directions should be given at a higher level of generality. The point is that students often waste time when they are confused about what to do next, and teachers should help reduce non-productive confusion.

 

b. Use effective media for presenting the directions. For example, you can write directions clearly on the chalkboard, use flip charts, employ the overhead projector, post laminated job descriptions, or use an automated display device (e.g., a user-friendly HyperCard stack) to demonstrate the problem or task.

c. Go over the directions only once, and only after all the students are attending (not talking and eyes on the teacher). But, you may ask, what if the students don't understand the directions after just a single presentation. In that case, it's obviously necessary to repeat them; but the point is that time has been wasted. Learn from your experience and strive to make the directions closer to perfect, so that needless repetition is unnecessary. What if most students understand the directions, but a few don't? In that case, it's often best to get the majority off to a successful start and then provide clarifications to the others. Having the directions available in several formats often makes it easier to remediate individual failures to comprehend the directions. For example, a teacher can give a verbal presentation of a set of directions that are projected onto a screen, and then hand a laminated copy of these same directions to a student who has trouble remembering them.

d. Direct students to begin only after all the instructions have been completed. Immediately after students begin work, the teacher should move throughout the room to make sure that they really did understand and to assist students who require individual attention.

 

 

3. Maintain continuity of lessons by managing transitions effectively. The point at which time is most often lost is when there is a disruption in the flow of lesson.

 

 

a. Avoid interruptions. Interruptions both cut into the time available and disrupt momentum, which is discussed later. Try to stay on one task at a time. If it becomes necessary to deal with a second task, try to complete the first or at least to bring it to a reasonable breaking point before you deal with the second. This is one of the major advantages of token reinforcement: tokens can be given or removed during a unit of instruction; and the actual reinforcement (which would be lengthy and disruptive) can come at a more convenient time. Therefore, small segments of learning can be reinforced without losing the momentum of the overall lesson.

 

b. Minimize time spent on discipline during instructional time. It is almost always possible to find a way to handle disciplinary statements or actions in such a way as to permit the ordinary flow of instruction to continue. If it is necessary to discuss behavior problems with students, this can usually be done after the lesson or after school, rather than during the lesson itself.

b. Establish transition routines. These are rules and procedures that the students know they are expected to observe when they conclude one step, task, or activity and begin the next component in the overlapping sequence. By realizing that problems are most likely to occur at transition points, instructors can minimize the disruptive influence of transitions from one task to another.

c. Maintain momentum and smoothness of instruction. These terms refer to a continued focus on meaningful instruction. This idea of avoiding choppy, segmented lessons overlaps with several other principles discussed in this chapter. The basic concept is that it takes time and effort for students to get into the flow of an instructional activity (much as an automobile expends gasoline and energy in order to reach cruising speed). Once they achieve the initial urge to engage actively in the learning activity, they display a tendency to stick with it - much as an automobile requires less energy to continue at cruising speed than it took to get there. If the student is forced to abandon the learning activity and then resume it, there is a waste of time and energy - much as a car wastes gasoline and energy in stop-and-go traffic.

d. Develop overlapping assignments. Give them in a sequence, which can extend over steps in a single task, over a class period, or over a week or more. A sequential assignment informs the learner of what comes next and what the expectations are.

4. Monitor all the students all the time. There are many ways to arrange the seating patterns of students; but no matter what grouping pattern is used, teachers who monitor closely have students that learn more.

a. Place student desks in arrangements that allow the teacher to have visual contact (preferably face to face) with all students from any position in the classroom.

b. Use an active approach to monitoring that minimizes time spent at the teacher's desk. Move to the students, not vice versa. Don't sit at the desk and summon students to your side when problems arise. Move around the classroom, scanning the whole group often and remaining alert for indications of off-task behavior.

c. Use student assistance to distribute and collect materials. This will make it less likely that you will become unaware of what is going on in the classroom.

d. Monitor in an unobtrusive, non-punitive manner. Students can feel - and be - free, even if you are monitoring their behavior and prompting them, when necessary, to stay on task. If your monitoring appears punitive or restrictive, it is likely to reduce the motivation of the students (because it restricts their feelings of self-efficacy and of being in control).

 

 

5. Improve the quality of instruction. By following the guidelines for effective instruction described in earlier chapters, teachers can help students use their time effectively. The following guidelines are especially useful:

a. Clarify the learning task. The assignment should clearly indicate to the learners what they are expected to learn and how they will show that they have accomplished the task. In addition, the task should be at the appropriate level of difficulty for each learner.

b. Motivate students to want to spend the time necessary to accomplish the learning task. It is often more productive to communicate to students the idea that learning is important business worth the time and effort it requires than to worry about squeezing every minute out of the hour or day. A teacher who spends lesson time talking about her family's vacation is not frittering away her students' academic learning time, if this helps lay a foundation for making the students want to become more actively involved in the learning process.

 

c. At least initially, learning tasks should be assigned by the teacher rather than selected by the learner. An eventual goal should be to enable students to set and accomplish their own learning goals, but it is not reasonable to assume that all students are inherently self-motivated goal-setters who know enough about the subject matter to determine what they should do next.

d. Assignments should result in a high rate of success. An hour's work at a low rate of understanding or success will be worth far less than ten minutes at a high rate of success.

 

e. Provide feedback to the learners. In addition to reminding them of what the task is, feedback helps motivate students by suggesting that their effort is worthwhile. Feedback should be specific and academically relevant. It should tell the learners what is wrong and provide corrective procedures (e.g., focus on misconceptions, suggest improved study strategies, or provide alternate learning materials). Feedback should be given often and quickly.

6. Make students accountable for their performance.

a. Even when other students are being called on, maintain a group focus - that is, use strategies that ensure that all students in the class stay involved in the lesson. The following specific strategies help accomplish this group focus:

• Make the questions and responses interesting, so that non-responding students will want to pay attention and stay involved.

•  
• Draw other students into the performance of the person responding. ("Watch carefully what Mary is going to do next.")

•  
• Ask follow-up questions about the responses given by students, so that other students must pay continual attention in order to be able to answer these additional questions.

•  
• Have students hold up their work, so that the you can view it.

•  
• Circulate among the students, so that you can see what the non-respondents are doing while another student is responding.

•  
• Create suspense before calling on a student to respond. One good way to do this is to ask the question first, prompt everyone to think about the answer, and only then call on one of the students to respond.

 

b. Even during seatwork, avoid spending too much time with one student. This guideline presents a dilemma. While all students are doing seatwork, this may be the ideal time to work with students who are experiencing difficulties. However, teachers should avoid the tendency to work too long with any one individual student. If the teacher gets too tied down with any one student, the rest of the class may lose their intensity and wander off-task. In many cases, teacher aides, peer-tutoring, or cooperative learning strategies can help solve this dilemma. The important point is to achieve a balance that meets the needs of individual students without sacrificing the well-being of the group.

c. Incorporate active student response into every group and individual learning activity. As the discussion of cooperative learning in Chapter 15 will indicate, individual responsibility for responses is an important feature of effective learning.

 

d. Collect frequent, small samples of student work and provide on-the-spot evaluative feedback whenever possible.

 

e. Ensure that all major learning activities result in "products," such as graded worksheets, and correct and return these as soon as possible.

 

f. Encourage oral responses during group sessions, and alert students to pay attention even when they are not directly involved in the verbal interchange.

 

g. Hold students responsible for maintaining accurate and current records of their levels of performance in each subject or skill area and frequently compare student records with teacher records. (Note that this guideline does not say to compare their performance with that of other students.)

 

h. Be sure that the content covered overlaps with the tests used to evaluate student performance.

7. Model effective study strategies. By maintaining a classroom in which learning is highly valued and is pursued smoothly, the teacher models effective study skills for the students.

 

8. Establish and follow simple, consistent rules regarding student behavior in the classroom. Rule-setting is discussed elsewhere in this chapter.

Too Much of a Good Thing!

As the introductory statement by Jones & Jones (1989) indicated, there is a certain degree of tension between good management and good teaching. After reading the preceding guidelines related to enhancing ALT, it is important to recall that the purpose of education is to enable students to learn - not to enable teachers to manage well. Classroom management is a tool to help students learn. While creative classroom geniuses blend the tool perfectly into their instructional strategies, many teachers have a tendency to set up classroom management as a priority of its own. This can be avoided simply be remembering that there is a possibility of an imbalance and making a deliberate effort to keep the focus on student learning. If a tool for classroom management interferes with learning, choose another tool.

The strategies used during the first few days and weeks are extremely important. If the students get out of control during the first few days or weeks, it is unlikely that they will ever gain the sense of discipline that they would have gained had they started the year under control. The following guidelines will help you get off to a good start (Emmer et al., 1980):

1. Plan the first day for maximum contact with and control over the students.

 

a. Use name tags. Distribute these smoothly, with no milling about.

b. Have plenty of interesting activities for students to work on once they are in their seats. (Usually have them work alone at first.)

c. Describe rules and procedures immediately. Give clear explanations and examples.

 

i. Allow students to suggest rules, if you wish.

ii. Cover only the rules and procedures that are immediately needed.

iii. Know ahead of time what problems are likely to occur, and make plans for specific procedures to deal with these.

iv. Make the rules specific. ("Be in the right place at the right time" is a vague rule.)

2. Spend a lot of time during the first two weeks explaining and reminding students of the rules.

a. Have them rehearse the rules (e.g., lining up).

b. Use incentive systems.

c. Establish signals (e.g., bell, teacher look).

3. Make the first academic activity an enjoyable one.

a. Do not group the children for this activity.

b. Do not begin routine work (e.g., workbooks).

4. Stay with the whole class, monitor closely, and give clear and specific questions.

 

a. Make frequent eye contact with all students.

b. Do not attend to one student to the exclusion of all others.

c. Avoid leaving the room to get materials or to go to the office.

d. If it does become necessary to lose contact with the whole class, do so only after a clear and specific assignment has been given.

5. Introduce new procedures and content gradually.

6. If inappropriate behavior occurs, stop it promptly.

 

a. Good managers and bad managers do not really differ in what they do after a misbehavior occurs. They differ in (a) what they have done previously, and (b) the time delay before they respond. (They respond more quickly.)

b. Do not make idle threats without follow-through.

7. Make transitions smooth and short.

8. Have activities for students who finish work before others.

9. Make directions for complicated activities easily available.

a. Write them on the board.

b. Ditto them and hand them to students.

10. Let students help other students.

11. Use a variety of materials.

12. State objectives clearly.

13. Give activities at which students can succeed.

14. Be especially careful to apply these principles during individualization. One of the main differences between good and bad managers is how they handle individualization. This is not to say don't individualize. Individualization is important, but it must be done correctly.

15. Prevent physical attacks and verbal abuse, and refrain from either.

 

a. Do not supply the students with materials (e.g. pins) that can be used to harm others.

16. Be fair to students.

17. Recognize success.

18. Be sensitive to how the students perceive the classroom.

 

a. Focus on their immediate needs (e.g., where to put coats, how to get permission to go to the bathroom).

b. Ease re-entry into the school world.

19. Make the climate relaxed and pleasant, but also work centered.

 

a. If the students have a rough time elsewhere, let the classroom be a haven.

20. Allow occasional breaks, but organize activities during the breaks.

21. Have procedures for overcoming constraints. Anticipate problems and disruptive events (e.g., lack of materials) and plan to deal with them.

 

a. Make plans for dealing with new students.

b. Don't let constraints detract from your attention to students.

22. Develop and display effective listening and communication skills (e.g., Gordon, 1974).

 

 

With-it-ness

Kounin (1977) has coined the term with-it-ness to describe a teacher's ability to be aware of what is going on in all areas of the classroom at all times. With-it teachers not only see or hear but also understand what is happening. With-it teachers use this insight to avoid mistakes commonly made by their more out-of-touch colleagues. They are also more likely to select the right student for what Kounin calls a desist - an admonition to stop a behavior that the teacher considers to be disruptive. This selection of the correct student for reprimand is one of the most important factors in effective discipline. In addition, with-it teachers are more likely to attend to the more serious problem when two or more are occurring at the same time. Finally, they also show better timing - they know when to let a minor problem go without reprimand but yet to intervene before the problem becomes serious. With-it-ness is one of the most noteworthy characteristics of teachers who are able to maintain a high degree of learning with minimal interruptions.

Unmet Needs as a Basis of Discipline Problems

It is probably intuitively obvious that some students misbehave because they choose to do so in order to meet their personal needs. This is another way to say that classroom misbehavior is often motivated by the principles of intrinsic motivation and attribution theory discussed in chapter 5 and self-esteem discussed in Chapter 8. To the extent that students perceive their teachers as punitive, coercive, or ignoring their needs, there are likely to be disruptions in classrooms.

A basic tenet of this book is that it is important to deal with the whole learner&endash;that is to consider the learners' diverse backgrounds and needs&endash;and to integrate the various principles discussed in this book into an effective strategy to promote the effective use of learning time. Several theorists focus specifically on the importance of meeting the needs of students in order to achieve effective classroom discipline.

Linda Albert (1996a) focuses on helping teachers meet student needs so that they will choose to cooperate with the teacher and with each other. Her insight is that most misbehavior originates out of students' unsuccessful attempts to meet the universal psychological need to belong. When they fail to experience the desired sense of belonging, students often direct their behavior toward mistaken goals: attention-seeking, power-seeking, revenge-seeking, and avoidance-of-failure. The disciplinary strategy is to recognize students' mistaken goals and to use this information to direct their energy into productive channels&endash;that is, to meet their own needs without interfering with the ability of others to do so.

It is impossible to cover in detail in this book either Albert's theory or those of others who focus on meeting the needs of students (e.g. Dreikurs, 1968; Coloroso, 1990, 1998; Kohn, 1996; Curwin and Mendler, 1980, 1984; Glasser, 1990, 1992, 1993). Albert offers an extensive list of practical guidelines in Appendix C of Cooperative Discipline (1996b).

An understanding of concepts discussed in the present book&endash;including human diversity, intrinsic motivation, attribution theory, scaffolded instruction, human development, character education, behavior modification, and classroom management&endash;can help teachers understand and apply the principles of these various theorists.

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With-It-Ness

Computers and Classroom Management

Computer technology offers some solutions as well as some problems for classroom management. Because of its ability to interact uniquely with individual students, the computer enables students to spend a large amount of time actively and successfully engaged in tasks related to important educational goals - even if the goals pursued by individual students differ considerably. To help students derive this benefit, the students must know how to use the computers, must be motivated to do so, and must have access to programs that perform many of the management and instructional activities that would normally be performed by a good teacher. Teachers who do not understand how to use computers, who do not have access to or who fail to select good software, or who use computer programs inappropriately are likely not only to deprive their students of many of the benefits of instructional computing, but also to have additional management problems in their classrooms.

(Identify a few more ways in which computers can help with classroom management.)

Computer technology also presents several possible obstacles to classroom management. Perhaps the most serious problem is that the hardware or software may malfunction. One of my colleagues recently went into a computer lab to present a carefully-planned science lesson in which each of 20 students was to work individually at a computer. When the class arrived in the lab, he discovered that only 13 of the 24 computers and only 2 of the six printers in the lab were working that day. He was faced with a serious management problem. Likewise, students sometimes make mistakes and computer programs sometimes contain bugs. For example, a student who has nearly finished a 500-word essay may accidentally erase it; or a student working at her Macintosh may suddenly see the bomb icon on the screen, with a cryptic message that a fatal error has occurred.

Just as tension and hostility among students can cause discipline problems, technological sources of frustration can severely disrupt the learning process. Teachers should take steps to prevent these problems and to minimize their impact. The severity of these problems is likely to be reduced if (1) the hardware and software are user friendly and free of problems, (2) the teacher is familiar with the hardware and software and knows what problems are likely to arise and how to solve them, (3) the students have useful guidelines for avoiding or overcoming these problems (e.g., don't push certain buttons, save textfiles often, and make backup copies of important files), and (4) the teacher is creative and flexible enough to suggest solutions or alternate courses of action when problems arise.

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Computers & Classroom Management

Discipline

Think back to your own school days. Think of the times when you yourself or some of your classmates became disruptive. What were the characteristics of the teachers who had the most problems? What were the characteristics of the teachers who had the fewest problems? Chances are, teachers who employed the principles discussed earlier in this chapter had the fewest problems. In addition, you can probably recall that some teachers were more likely to obtain the cooperation of their students, while others seemed to alienate their students and practically demand discipline problems.

There are two key factors behind enlisting the cooperation of students: respect and authority. Teachers who establish an atmosphere of mutual respect between themselves and their students are likely to have fewer problems (Purkey & Stanley, 1991). In addition to displaying general politeness and positive regard for their students (Harter, 1988), teachers can show respect by developing an appreciation for each student's uniqueness and intelligence (Goffin, 1989) and by showing realistic expectations, offering helpful feedback, and encouraging students to ask questions (Bergman & Gaitskill, 1990). Teacher behaviors that demonstrate a lack of respect include not holding students accountable for academic performance, giving assignments that are insultingly easy, allowing the students to show disrespect for the teacher and toward others in the classroom, and doing things for the students that they could easily do for themselves (Landfried, 1989).

The key is that respect must be mutual: if teachers respect students, students are likely to return this respect; and people in general have a tendency to avoid doing things to annoy persons they respect. In addition, by modeling respect toward students, teachers can stimulate among the students an attitude of respect for one another. Students who are cooperating with one another are less likely to have conflicts that will result in disruptions.

 

Fritz Redl and William Wattenberg: Group behavior differs from individual behavior. Teachers can learn how to use influence techniques to deal with undesirable aspects of group behavior (Redl, 1972).

 

Jacob Kounin: Good classroom behavior depends on effective lesson management, especially on pacing, transitions, alerting, and individual accountability (Kounin, 1977).

 

B.F. Skinner: Human behavior can be shaped along desired lines by means of the systematic application of reinforcement (Axelrod, 1977).

 

Haim Ginott: Discipline is a series of little victories, brought about when teachers use sane messages - messages that address the situation rather than the students' character - to guide students away from inappropriate behavior toward behavior that is appropriate and lasting (Ginott, 1971).

 

Rudolf Dreikurs: All students want recognition, and most misbehavior occurs from their attempts to get it. When they don't get recognition, they channel their behavior toward four "mistaken goals," which teachers must recognize and deal with (Dreikurs, 1982).

 

Frederic Jones: Students need support of their self control. Teachers should use appropriate body language, provide incentives that motivate desired behavior, and provide effective and efficient help to students during independent work time (Jones, 1987).

 

Lee Canter: Teachers should assertively insist on proper behavior from students and should have well-organized procedures for following through when they do not follow rules (Canter & Canter, 1976; Canter, 1989).

 

William Glasser: (1) The teacher should provide a classroom environment and curriculum that meets students' basic needs for belonging, power, fun, and freedom, as a means of motivating students and reducing behavior. (2) The teacher should help students make good behavioral choices that lead ultimately to success (Glasser, 1969, 1985).

Charles (1992) presents concise, clear summaries of the major ideas of these theorists, plus guidelines for integrating these ideas into a personal plan for maintaining classroom discipline.

Authority is an important but often misunderstood factor. Effective authority need not be imposed by a dictatorial teacher who demands unflinching obedience from the students. Rather, it can best be described as an atmosphere in which people being managed (in this case, the students) have an inclination to cooperate with the manager (the teacher). Some people acquire this inclination simply because another person is designated as a director, a superior, or a teacher. Other people develop this inclination only in response to the leadership of the person in authority. The most effective application of authority in teaching is the authoritative (rather than authoritarian) style. (This distinction was made on page xxx in chapter 4.) In other words, teachers use authority wisely when they demonstrate a willingness and ability to accept a leadership role, but exercise this leadership through appeals to reason and persuasion rather than through demands for blind obedience.

However, even teachers who have the respect of their students, who maintain an atmosphere of authority, and who employ the management strategies described earlier in this chapter, will have occasional problems with student misbehavior - students will engage in off-task and disruptive behavior, often for reasons completely unrelated to the most careful plans made by the teacher. Besides faulty classroom management, factors that lead to classroom behavior include social interactions inside and outside the classroom, the personality of the students and teacher, temporary frustrations of the students, and economic and sociological pressures. When problems arise for whatever reason, teachers must be prepared to deal with them in order to return the classroom to an environment more conducive to learning.

In the following discussion, the term discipline refers to strategies teachers employ to bring at least a temporary halt to disruptive behaviors, so that instruction can proceed in an orderly manner. The term self-discipline refers to the ability of students to manage their own behavior and direct it toward productive activities. Discipline is likely to lead to merely temporary changes in behavior, unless it is backed up by strategies designed to develop self-discipline. The eventual goal of a comprehensive discipline strategy should be to promote self-discipline.

When taking steps to maintain an orderly classroom, it is important that teachers keep in mind the level of moral development of the students (Chapter 8). If teachers ignore this factor, students are likely to fail to understand the rationale behind disciplinary strategies. In that case, they are likely to feel that the entire system is artificial rather than natural, and they are likely to follow blindly or to actively resist. In addition, it is important to note that an effective program of discipline can contribute to the moral development of the students (Rich, 1993).

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Discipline

Most teachers view having to deal with discipline problems as one of the greatest drawbacks of teaching. Perhaps this perception is short-sighted.

Juan is a fourth grader who pitches in little league baseball but performs long division badly and shows no interest in improving his computational skills. One day during the early part of baseball season Juan hears television and radio announcers talking about earned run averages and becomes seriously frustrated because he cannot calculate his own earned run average. When his teacher discovers that Juan views himself as having a serious problem, she demonstrates to him that the application of a simple formula employing long division makes it possible to rapidly compute earned run averages. Juan develops an immediate interest in long division, pays close attention to his teacher, and soon becomes proficient at long division.

Arnold is a fourth grader in the same class who enjoys recess, but has trouble getting along with some of his classmates. One day Arnold experiences a serious conflict with two of his classmates, and as a result all three students are required to miss recess. Arnold realizes that he will continue to miss recess and probably experience other problems if he cannot learn to get along with his peers better. He listens to his teacher when she points out to him that he could solve his problem by using conflict resolution strategies that she explains to the three of them. The next time a conflict arises, Arnold applies the conflict resolution strategy, and he not only avoids the loss of recess but also arrives at a friendly solution to the dispute. Arnold thereafter continues to apply the conflict resolution strategy to settle differences.

Nearly all teachers would be happy to see Juan encounter and solve his problem. Juan's realization that he had a problem presented an opportunity for important learning to take place. However, many of the same teachers would be upset to see Arnold's problem come to the surface. In reality, Arnold had just as much to gain as Juan by having his problem manifest itself: Arnold's realization that he had a problem presented an opportunity for important learning to take place.

It is no more logical to expect students to spontaneously learn social skills and self-discipline than to imagine that they will instinctively develop mathematical skills for which they see no practical value. Both teachers and students can benefit from viewing discipline problems as opportunities for learning the skills necessary to resolve those problems. People become mature decision-makers and problem-solvers by making decisions and solving problems - not by having someone else make all their decisions and solve all their problems for them (Kamii, 1991). The logic of learning theory that is usually applied to academic goals needs also to be applied to the development of self-discipline (DeVries & Zan, 1994).

Principle of Least Disruptive Intervention

A large number of the discipline problems teachers must deal with are minor. In many cases these behaviors would be perfectly acceptable if they were done in a different time or place: shouting in the classroom instead of on the playground, laughing when the teacher is trying to make a serious point instead of when the teacher is telling a joke, leaving their seats without permission, or talking in a friendly manner to their friends when they are supposed to be doing seatwork. In many cases, these problems can handled while hardly disrupting the instructional process. Since time spent on discipline detracts from time spent on learning, most experts on classroom discipline recommend a strategy of employing the least disruptive intervention needed to solve the problem. The following list describes a continuum of intervention strategies ranging from least to most disruptive.

1. Prevention. Anticipate the problem, and take simple steps to prevent the disruption. For example, if a student is likely to be disruptive when frustrated, do something to prevent the frustration; if students become disruptive when bored, use humor or high interest stories to prevent boredom; if they become disruptive when fatigued, give breaks at appropriate intervals to minimize fatigue.

2. Nonverbal signals. Sometimes mere eye contact can stop a misbehavior at its beginning. Moving closer to students often has a similar impact. These nonverbal signals can stop potentially disruptive behavior with almost no loss of continuity and momentum.

3. Praise for correct behaviors that are incompatible with disruptive behaviors. Catch the students doing desirable behaviors before they even have a chance to engage in undesirable behaviors.

4. Praise for other students for correct behaviors that are incompatible with disruptive behaviors.

5. Simple verbal reminders. Immediately after or even during the misbehavior, state to the student what he or she should be doing. The reminder should be directed to the misbehaving student as privately as possible. It is less effective to wait for a long time to deliver the reminder or to dwell on what the student has been doing that is wrong. Public criticism could be perceived as much more severe than the teacher may intend it to be.

6. Repeated reminders. Watch for the misbehavior, and immediately issue a verbal reminder every time it occurs. This often works best if you don't tolerate or listen to arguments - just repeat the reminder every time it is needed.

7. Applying unpleasant consequences. Punishment is not necessarily a "bad" form of classroom management. From the perspective of the present discussion, it's simply likely to be disruptive - at least to the student being punished and possibly to others as well. In addition, punishment is likely to have the negative side effects described in Chapter 11.

 

By employing a strategy that is as non-disruptive as possible, teachers can avoid the unnecessary loss of potential academic learning time.

Stating and Maintaining Rules

{Needs to be Added}

Behavior Modification

The principles of behavior modification and observational learning have been discussed in Chapters 10 through 12. As those principles state, a powerful strategy for maintaining a productive classroom environment is to provide pleasant consequences for on-task behavior and unpleasant consequences for off-task behavior. Teachers who implement the other strategies discussed in this chapter will automatically be applying principles of behavior modification - perhaps without realizing that they are doing so; but a specific focus on behavior modification can increase a teacher's ability to manage instruction and deal with discipline problems.

This book has encouraged teachers to understand the principles of behavior modification and to apply them as necessary to solve problems and to avoid their accidental misapplication. Following this advice, some teachers may rarely implement formal programs of behavior modification. At the opposite extreme, it is also possible to make the deliberate use of behavior modification the basis for an entire educational program. A program called CABAS (Comprehensive Application of Behavior Analysis to Schooling) employs constant behavior modification not only for learners , but also for the teachers and supervisors.

• Students have specific objectives to attain, and teachers use scripts (short-term objectives based on principles of shaping) to meet these goals.
• Teachers are taught to use principles of behavior modification to teach the scripted behaviors.
• Students are rewarded for attainment of short-term and long-term objectives. Progress is constantly recorded and charted. Students are reinforced for progress by tangible rewards, by praise from teachers, by viewing their own progress on the charts, and by the inherent benefits of their improved performance.
• Teachers record and chart their own behaviors - including their own implementation of the training procedures and the responses made by their students. The visible feedback from the charts serves as a basis for reinforcement for teachers, as does feedback from peers and supervisors. In addition, teachers can be offered additional incentives (such as a cash bonus for attainment of goals.)
• Supervisors record and chart their own behaviors - including all tasks related to the effective execution of the CABAS program.

The result is that students, teachers, and supervisors all perform their tasks very effectively, and the eventual outcome is substantially enhanced learning. Although the CABAS program has been tested with students with multiple handicaps, its developers point out that similar procedures would be applicable to non-handicapped students.

Although nearly all the principles discussed in Chapter 10 and 11 are pertinent for dealing with discipline and classroom management problems, those principles will not all be covered again in detail in this chapter. The following guidelines focus on aspects of behavior modification particularly relevant to discipline and classroom management.

1. Use natural (rather than artificial) consequences as often as possible. There's no need for learners to feel manipulated. The main impact of a teacher's knowledge of the principles of behavior modification is that the teacher should be able to avoid the accidental misapplication of these principles and appeal to them when they will help solve problems that arise.

2. Focus primarily on reinforcing desirable behaviors instead of punishing undesirable behaviors. Make an effort to "catch students being good." Teach them what to do, not just what not to do.

3. Use group reinforcement and especially group punishment only for behaviors that can legitimately be viewed as group behaviors. Students almost universally resent being punished for what someone else did when they themselves have been on-task. For example, if the classroom is generally messy, then it makes sense to say to withhold some recess by saying, "We can't go out to recess until we clean up the room properly." Making the same statement and making the entire class late for recess when only one child's desk is messy would be much less appropriate.

4. Frequently it is the accidental misapplication of principles of behavior modification that has maintained a misbehavior. When this is the case, the misbehavior can often be eliminated simply by realizing that the principles are being misapplied and applying them correctly for an appropriate behavior.

5. The certainty that the consequences will occur is more important than their magnitude. Teachers can often help students stay on task and avoid disruptive behaviors simply by making clear to them the nature of the consequences likely to follow either type of behavior.

 

In addition to feelings of pride or accomplishment, the most powerful reinforcers for maintaining either on-task or off-task behavior are usually attention and approval from peers and teachers, and release from fatigue or boredom. The importance of these reinforcers at different developmental stages and vary from student to student. A major responsibility of an effective teacher is to see to it that these reinforcers follow productive rather than disruptive behaviors.

Popular systems for maintaining good behavior in the classroom or in the home are often based on the principles of behavior modification. Assertive Discipline (Canter, 1989; Canter & Canter, 1976, 1981) is one example. Although these popular systems have been subjected to legitimate criticism (e.g., Curwin & Mendler, 1988; Gartrell, 1987), they often have beneficial effects. Assertive Discipline and similar systems of discipline work best when the teacher or other caretaker has an overall understanding of the principles of behavior modification and of other pertinent principles discussed in this book and can modify and adapt the system to the needs of individual students (Feldman, 1944).

While I was writing this book, I heard on a radio show that a teacher in Colorado had developed an interesting system of after-school detentions. The interesting component was that he played loud Frank Sinatra music during the detention period. The students hated the music, and few students risked repeating the experience; and so behavior improved. (I assume if this didn't work, the last resort would be the Mario Lanzo Study Hall.)

Is this a sensible strategy? The answer is simple: if the strategy reduced misbehavior, promoted cooperative behavior, and led to no undesirable side effects, then it was a sensible strategy. Is this natural or artificial punishment? That would depend on how it was introduced. If the teacher took an attitude that "you caused me trouble, and so now I'm going to put you through the living hell of this music," then the punishment would be artificial. It would be likely to several negative side effects, and it probably would not work very well. On the other hand, the teacher could take a different attitude: "You'll have to stay after school with me. While I supervise you, I have to get my work done. While I do my work, I listen to this kind of music. Now please be quiet so I can listen to the music and get my work done." Presented in this way, the punishment seems a great deal more like a natural consequence. The students would still find the music irritating, and so they would be inclined to behavior to avoid the detention center; but the punishment would be much less likely to evoke negative side effects.

Basketball coaches of young children often find it challenging to get their players to listen to even brief strategy lectures. One coach whom I know solves this problem by having his players run wind sprints when they start to get disruptive. When he finds that players aren't listening closely, he says, "It looks like we're not in the mood for concentration. Let's do something that requires less brain power." He then instructs his players to line up at one end of the court. They must run to the foul line, touch it, and return to the end of the court; then they must immediately run to the center court line, touch it, and return; then to the other foul line, touch it and return; and finally they must sprint to the opposite end of the court and back. The first time he employs this strategy each year, he may have his players do this several times; but as the year goes on, all he has to do is mention wind sprints, and he gets immediate attention. Let's explain this in terms of behavior modification.

1. The wind sprints are a form of punishment. Specifically, they are Type I punishment.

2. The students receive Type III reinforcement for paying attention during future strategy lectures.

3. The coach has presented the punishment as a natural consequence. This will minimize negative side effects.

4. The strategy will work best if the strategy sessions are short and productive. Long and boring sessions may lead the students to believe that the wind sprints are more worthwhile than the strategy sessions.

5. The main strategy employed by the coach was the reinforcement of incompatible behavior. If they paid attention during the strategy sessions, the players would learn useful skills that would enable them to play basketball more effectively and win ball games.

This strategy worked for this coach because he had an interesting and worthwhile activity in which he knew sensible players would want to participate. In addition to making his students run wind sprints, this coach convinced his players that they had important goals to attain if they wanted to be a good basketball team; and he presented himself to his players as a competent expert who could help them reach these goals. He adopted a friendly but firm stance that the team had important things to do and that there was little room for nonsense when he was trying to be serious. He attempted to make the strategy sessions informative and interesting. During them, he used effective teaching strategies, such as stating an objective, convincing the players that it was an important objective, focusing attention appropriately, asking questions to verify their level of understanding, and then implementing the strategies both in practice and in actual games. The fact that he tolerated horseplay at other times and did other things to make the practices enjoyable made it easier to maintain order during his strategy sessions. This coach did not run "a behavior modification program," but he used the principles of behavior modification to solve this specific problem when it arose.

Conflict Resolution and Peer Mediation

A sensible way to approach classroom discipline is to state that many disruptions arise from conflicts among students, and a good way to minimize disruptions is to teach students themselves how to resolve their own conflicts (Elias, 1998; Johnson & Johnson, 1996). In addition to solving classroom management problems, this approach teaches students useful skills that will serve them outside the classroom.

Johnson & Johnson (1996) have summarized the status of research with regard to conflict resolution: "(a) conflicts among students do occur frequently in schools (although the conflicts rarely result in serious injury); (b) untrained students by and large use conflict strategies that create destructive outcomes by ignoring the importance of their ongoing relationships; (c) conflict resolution and peer mediation programs do seem to be effective in teaching students integrative negotiation and mediation procedures; (d) after training, students tend to use these conflict strategies, which generally leads to constructive outcomes; and (e) students' success in resolving their conflicts constructively tends to result in reducing the numbers of student-student conflicts referred to teachers and administrators, which, in turn, tends to reduce suspensions."

Johnson & Johnson (1991a, 1991b) advocate deliberate strategies to teach children to be peacemakers. Their basic procedure consists of three steps:

1. Teach children negotiation skills, which will enable them to define their conflict, exchange positions and proposals, view the situation from both perspectives, invent options for mutual gain, and reach a sensible agreement.

2. Teach students how to mediate constructive resolutions of their classmates' conflicts. (Mediation is the process of using another person's services to help settle a dispute.)

3. Once all students have learned the skills of negotiation and mediation, two students are designated each day to serve as official mediators (peacemakers). These roles are rotated throughout the entire class, and these mediators mediate any conflicts that cannot be solved by the parties involved.

The teacher supports the processes described in these guidelines by teaching, modeling, and offering advice. A vast number of conflicts occur in almost all school environments. These concern such problems as put-downs, teasing, fights, turn-taking problems, and conflicts regarding playground opportunities, turn-taking, access to or possession of materials, and even academic work. A program such as this not only reduces the amount of time teachers must spend on conflict resolution; it also enables the students to develop skills that can be applied throughout the rest of their lives. A key part of this program is overlearning (discussed in Chapter 14). The skills of negotiation and mediation have to become automatic, so that students can resort to them to solve or avoid problems.

One legitimate concern is that devoting class time to peer mediation might detract from academic learning time that should more usefully be devoted to academic activities. This need not be a concern: it is possible to integrate these topics with curriculum subject matter. (See, for example, Stevahn, et al., 1996).

(I need to note in the teacher's manual how compatible this is with cooperative learning. I also need to mention Glasser again here.)

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Conflict Resolution

Serious Behavior Problems

The preceding discussion of discipline has focused on relatively minor disruptive behaviors. Some students display more serious behavior problems: they may not be merely mischievous, overly exuberant, or careless, they would more accurately be described as dangerous persons with personality problems. Highly skilled counselors and psychologists have trouble solving the problems of these students, and so it would be naive to expect most ordinary classroom teachers to be successful with them. Likewise, some students are involved in problems whose scope goes far beyond the control of the teacher: they may be addicted to drugs, sexually abused, or members of a gang whose code prohibits cooperative behavior in school. Although guidelines for dealing with some of these problems are discussed in Chapter 16, it would be unduly optimistic to hope that isolated classroom teacher or even the entire school system can solve these major societal problems.

Nevertheless, teachers have to face the fact that some of their discipline problems will be serious. First, it is important to resist the tendency to label a student as an "unsolvable problem" simply because we are objectively unlikely to be able to solve the student's entire problem. Small steps do make a difference, and there have been numerous instances when teachers have been able to have an impact on students whose problems initially appeared unsolvable. The cumulative effect of many teachers having a small impact can be even more significant. For many children, school can offer a haven where they are safe from the hazards that threaten their physical or psychological safety elsewhere. Students with severe problems can often find in the secure environment of a good school the strength they need to overcome obstacles elsewhere. By applying the normal principles of classroom management and discipline, as well as principles of instruction discussed throughout the rest of this textbook, teachers can often increase the likelihood that these students will overcome their problems.

Secondly, it is important for teachers to acquire information that will help them deal with the problem behavior. This information is of two kinds: practical and theoretical. Practical information is obtained by talking to the student, gathering information pertinent to the problem, and becoming immersed in the culture of the student. Theoretical information can be found in books and other scholarly sources. For example, Chapter 16 of this book offers information regarding such topics as drug abuse, parental divorce, and sexual abuse of children. The proper mixture of personal and theoretical information can arm teachers with knowledge that will make them more capable of dealing with students with severe problems.

Finally, it is important for teachers to seek advice and cooperation from colleagues with greater expertise or authority regarding the student with severe behavior problems. If parents are cooperative, it is often helpful to coordinate the school's efforts with theirs. In addition, most school systems have specialists who may be able to offer useful advice to teachers who encounter students with serious problems. Since many of these students are mainstreamed through special education or at-risk programs, the specialists who coordinate those programs can often coordinate the activities of teachers and others to deal with the problems. {Mention here a good citation to consultation.}

Individualizing Discipline Techniques

Since individuals vary in the skills and previous experience they bring to a disciplinary situation, teachers will handle discipline problems more effectively to the extent that they are able to individualize their strategies to suit the needs of individual students. For example, as Chapters 10 showed, what is reinforcing to one student may be punishing to another; and therefore behavior modification techniques need to take into consideration the characteristics of individual students in order to be effective.

Spaulding & Spaulding (1982) have recommended a strategy for individualizing disciplinary strategies based on the personalities of individual students. These personalities are defined in terms of eight coping styles, some of which are adaptive and some maladaptive. The important point is that people with different coping styles will respond differently to different interventions. Spaulding and Spaulding provide guidelines for diagnosing the coping styles of individual students.

In dealing with student misbehavior, a teacher should have two goals: (1) to stop misbehavior by using a strategy that is appropriate for the coping style of the targeted student, and (2) to help the student develop a coping style which is likely to be effective in more real-life situations.

Fortunately, many of the same teacher behaviors are appropriate for several coping styles over a number of different problems. Therefore, teacher does not have to learn 80 strategies to cover the eight coping styles in ten problem situations. However, the important thing is that the teacher can identify which children are not likely to respond to a major strategy and use additional strategies with those children.

Supporting Self-Regulation

Self-discipline requires a specific type of decision-making and problem solving. Like other higher order thinking skills, self-discipline is learned and generalized through experience. From this perspective, every discipline problem can be viewed as a learning opportunity. The eventual goal of a good discipline program should be to help students develop self-discipline. It is irrational to expect that children can have someone else control their lives up to the day of graduation, and immediately thereafter these children become adults capable of structuring their own behavior appropriately. As the box on page xxx suggested, skills regarding self-discipline and cooperative, non-disruptive interactions in classroom environments have to be learned, much like other skills. The guidelines in Chapter 8 regarding character education and moral development and the guidelines in Chapter 7 regarding self-regulation offer useful insights into helping students learn to interact productively in classrooms and other environments. The following few paragraphs will focus on strategies specifically designed to minimize disruptive behavior by teaching students skills to overcome potentially disruptive problems.

Learning to regulate one's own behavior is no easy task. This is true both of an adult trying to eat a more appropriate diet and of a child who is expected to be productive rather than disruptive in a classroom. To regulate one's own behavior, people must (1) monitor their own behavior, (2) assess situations, (3) make judgments regarding what behaviors would be appropriate, and (4) master the skills and procedures required to engage in an acceptable behavior. Learning self-regulation is similar to any other form of learning: it requires opportunities to learn the component skills and to apply them in realistic settings. In order to learn to monitor their own behavior in the classroom, students have to have opportunities to (1) make decisions regarding how to behave, (2) follow through on these decisions, (3) receive consequences for these decisions, and (4) modify and improve their future plans based on this experience. In addition, as with any other form of learning, it is important to give the student opportunities and assistance in generalizing self-regulation strategies learned in one setting to the wider variety of settings in which they can be useful.

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Self-Regulation of Behavior

Freedom and Emotional Climate

It is obvious that students learn and behave better if they feel good about the learning setting - or is it? The research of Soar and Soar (19xx) indicates that the avoidance of negative affect is important, but the expression of positive affect is not. These authors also challenge the belief that students learn best when they have as much freedom as possible. With regard to management, rather than advocating freedom in all areas, these authors suggest considering each academic area separately. In general, the teacher should limit (but not necessarily prohibit) pupil freedom to move about, to form subgroups, and to socialize. Unless a teacher has established a minimum of structure, relatively strong interactions that are not functional are likely to occur. Teacher selection and direction, with some degree of student freedom, is related to student learning. Some teachers can manage to develop this combination without closely monitoring student behavior.

For managing thinking, Soar and Soar maintain that some degree of student freedom within a context of teacher involvement that maintains focus leads to achievement. For lower-level students, greater amounts of high cognitive-level interaction are not helpful. The amount of student freedom that is desirable appears to depend on the learning task. For more complex tasks, a greater degree of freedom may be desirable. Both progressive education and open education, in attempts to free pupil thought and inquiry, have probably also freed student behavior in undesirable, wasteful ways. Teachers who have their students working productively in their seats or who hold drill sessions to help students review basic facts should not necessarily be regarded as old fashioned or unprofessional. On the other hand, there is evidence that learning activities and thinking processes can be too tightly controlled for greatest pupil gain in more complex areas.

Soar and Soar suggest that "universal prescriptions" are often misleading. We cannot recommend "giving students greater freedom" without indicating to what degree, in what respect, or toward what objective. We cannot recommend asking more "higher order questions" without specifying the pupil group, the frequency of the behavior, or the relevant outcome.

Humor

(I plan to develop a brief discussion of the role of humor in maintaining an effective classroom atmosphere.)

Ridicule is widely assumed to be a bad corrective strategy. For example, I have found that when I ask my students to recall the traits of their worst teachers, the most common characteristic of bad teachers is that they ridiculed their students inappropriately. However, Bryant, Brown, & Parks (1981) have shown that ridicule does sometime work to correct improper educational behavior among college students. It would require further research to determine whether unidentified negative side effects of ridicule might outweigh short-term benefits.

It is likely that most people have benefitted at some time in their lives from benign and corrective ridicule. If this is true, then it may not make sense to write it off as intrinsically evil. I myself remember a competent and friendly English composition teacher who ridiculed my writing from time to time, and I shaped up. On the other hand, I also recall a French teacher who ridiculed us so much that it seemed to be abusive. My son has a science teacher who graduated from a rural college in southern Indiana known for its basketball prowess. This teacher ridicules my son for his association with Purdue, and my son returns the good-natured ridicule. The repartee builds rapport. On the other hand, I recently visited a class of predominantly black students who intensely resented the fact that their white teacher seemed to ridicule them along racial lines. She told me that she thought she was establishing a relaxed, informal, friendly atmosphere with them; and she was surprised that her students had these negative reactions. It seems that the problem with ridicule is that it is likely to backfire if the person delivering the ridicule misunderstands the perspective of the recipient.

Cooperative Learning

Cooperative learning refers to the use classroom environments that are deliberately designed to foster a spirit of cooperation among students, as opposed to competitive or individualistic environments which make cooperation less likely. The motivational value of cooperative learning environments was discussed in Chapter 5. In the studies reported in the literature, cooperative learning is almost never inferior to control environments at generating affective and cognitive outcomes (Johnson & Johnson, 1989; Slavin, 1990).

There are several explanations for the success of cooperative learning, including increased motivation arising from the removal of disincentives that often accompany competitive environments (See Chapter 5 and Johnson & Johnson, 1991), social interactions (Cohen, 1986), and developmental principles (Damon, 1984). In addition, by providing an opportunity for legitimate, on-task social interactions, cooperative learning often minimizes disruptive, off-task social activities (Lazarowitz, 1992).

In addition to the factors cited in the preceding paragraphs, cooperative learning often appeals to teachers because it offers a good way to deal with the wide range of diversity that often exists in a heterogenious classroom. Although a wide range of abilities interferes with some approaches to instruction, individual differences actually contribute to cooperative learning environments (Johnson and Johnson, 1986; Slavin, 1990; Stevens and Slavin, 1995a, 1995b).

Although the term is loosely defined, not all attempts at group learning are properly considered to be cooperative learning (Antil, Jenkins, Wayne, and Vadasy, 1998). Damon & Phelps (1989), point out that it is appropriate to distinguish among three approaches to peer education.

 

Peer tutoring (discussed in Chapter 15) occurs when either same-age or older students help other students master educational objectives. This strategy is most useful for providing opportunities to practice what has already been introduced in another context.

 

Collaborative learning occurs when relative novices work together at challenging tasks that members of the group have not worked on. The learners work together (collaborate) to come to a new product or insight.

Cooperative learning is a less clearly defined term whose crucial element is that learners see themselves as working toward common goals with their classmates rather than as competing with them. This may or may not include either peer tutoring or collaborative learning.

 

While all three types of peer learning can contribute to learning, the distinctions among them are worth noting.

There are five main characteristics of cooperative learning (Johnson and Johnson, 1991a, 1992):

1.  
2. Positive interdependence refers to the notion that the members of the group perceive themselves as working together to achieve a group goal that is important to all of them. The success of the group depends on the effective contribution of all the members.

    

3. Individual accountability means that each individual member is assessed against a standard, and the results of that assessment will be known by the members of the group.

    

4. Promotive interaction means that members of the group are in direct contact and help one another.

    

5. Development of small-group skills refers to the notion that learners need interpersonal skills to work together effectively.

    

6. Group processing means that group members reflect on their collaborative efforts and strive to improve their effectiveness.

Not everyone who uses or endorses cooperative learning requires that all five characteristics be present. For example, Slavin (19xx) emphasizes only the first two factors, and he doesn't insist on communicating the individual assessment results to the group.

In some cases, cooperative learning is effective even when there is little interaction among the cooperating students. In these cases, the critical factor seems to be the elimination of the disincentives inherent in competition that prevent some students from doing their best (Slavin, 1990). The value of interaction may vary with various instructional objectives.For example, for instructional units focusing on skills at the low end of Bloom's taxonomy, group interaction prior to testing may not be important. In such cases it is probably good to permit but not require students to study together. For higher level and creative applications, however, systems that maximize interaction among group members are likely to be more effective (Slavin, 1992; Damon & Phelps, 1989).

Table 13.1 briefly summarizes examples of several approaches to cooperative learning.

Table 13.1. Specific Examples of Cooperative Learning
Label	Reference	Brief Description
CIRC Program	(Stevens, Madden, Slavin, & Farnish, 1987), Stevens & Slavin (1995)	Uses scaffolded instruction with small groups of students.
Group Retest	Vockell, 1994	Students take regular test, then retake it as a group, and then take alternate form of the test
Cooperative Homework	O'Melia & Rosenberg (1994)	Students do homework independently but share responsibilities before it is turned in to teacher.
Cooperative Scripting	O'Donnell & Dansereau, 1992, and Spurlin et al., 1984	See this section.
Reciprocal Teaching		Uses scaffolded instruction with small groups of students. Described in the Reading Section of Chapter 17.
Jigsaw Method	(Aronson, et al., 1978), Dockterman (1991)	Each group member becomes an expert on one part of a larger topic. Each specialist teaches the other members of the group about his/her area of expertise.
Student Teams - Achievement Divisions (STAD)	(Slavin, 1986).	Team scores are based on the combined performance of individual team members, and the highest scoring group receives recognition
Team-Assisted Individualization (TAI)	(Slavin, 1984)	Cooperative activities within a group plus competition among groups..
Teams-Games-Tournament (TGT)	(Slavin, 1980)	(Described in this chapter.)
College level applications	Bruffee (1993).
Heads Together	Kagan (1990)

The Teams-Games-Tournament (TGT) (Slavin, 1980) is built around two major components: 4- to 5-member student teams, and instructional tournaments among the teams. Students are assigned to teams according to a procedure that maximizes heterogeneity of ability, sex, and race. The primary function of the team is to prepare its members to do well in the tournament. Prior to the tournaments, students are given worksheets covering academic material to be covered in the tournament. Teammates study together and quiz each other to be sure that all team members are prepared for the tournament.

During the tournaments, students from the various teams are matched for ability and compete with one another. (Based on previous performance, the top students from each team compete at one table, the second from each team at another table, etc.) Since the tables are grouped homogeneously, each team member has an opportunity to contribute equally to the team's success, since the winner at each table contributes the same number of points to the team's overall score.

 

 

The following guidelines will maximize the likelihood of successful cooperative learning:

1.  
2. Design cooperative projects so that all members can have a legitimate role to play and so that they can all interact and contribute equally. Use curriculum materials that stimulate cooperative efforts (e.g., Cohen, 1990).
3. Keep clear in your mind the distinction between cooperative learning and peer tutoring. Peer tutoring is not an essential component of cooperative learning.
4. Be careful in giving group grades. Avoid incentives that will encourage the brightest students to do all the work. Group grades for worksheets, for example, might encourage everyone to let the brightest students take over. It is important to maintain individual accountability.
5. Set authentic group goals that are important to the members of the groups.
6. Teach group participation skills - how to take responsibility, how to ask questions, how to answer questions without somehow hurting the person who asked the question, etc. (Johnson & Johnson, 1991a).
7. Be flexible in your grouping. Change groups for various activities. Use different criteria. Don't have people in one group for the entire year. By regrouping your students, you can give them the opportunity to change roles and practice the skills that they have learned in a previous group.
8. Teach the students how to be good, active group members. You can do this by employing the preceding strategies, by modeling effective cooperative strategies, and by reinforcing the group members for effective participation.

It is important to note that cooperative learning, if poorly implemented, can lead to ineffective instruction (e.g., See Robinson, 1990; Matthews, 1992).

Cooperative scripts enable students to work in cooperative pairs to study material from textbooks. Before using this strategy, the teacher must divide the textual passage into segments of 500-600 words, assign the students to pairs to study these segments, and explain to the students how to use the script. The script consists of a set of rules such as the following (adapted from O'Donnell & Dansereau, 1992, and Spurlin et al., 1984):

1. Both partners read the first section of the text.

2. Without looking at the text, Partner A summarizes aloud to Partner B the information. This summary should cover all the main ideas in the text.

3. After listening to the entire summary and while looking at the text, Partner B does the following:

a. corrects Partner A's summary by discussing important information that was omitted or misstated;

b. helps both partners remember the material by thinking of clever ways to integrate the information into their memories. In doing this, it is appropriate to use any effective encoding strategies, such as relating the new information to previous information or to personal experiences or drawing diagrams.

4. Partner A can help Partner B during Step 3.

5. Both partners read the next section of the text.

6. Partners A and B switch roles for the next section.

7. Partners A and B continue in this manner until the whole unit of instruction is completed.

Researchers (e.g., O'Donnell and Dansereau, 1992) suggest that this method is successful because it incorporates numerous principles of active encoding (See Chapters 6 and 7) and observational learning (Chapter 10).

Group rewards for individual accomplishment are often an important factor in cooperative learning (Slavin, 1984). The idea is for all the members of the group to share the perception that the group is successful when individuals within the group are successful. Providing recognition to the group for the performance of individuals within that group is likely to increase the performance of all the students in the group. Other systems (such as rewarding the group for group performance) are more likely to improve the performance of only selected members within the group (such as those who have the most important roles within the group).

When switching to a cooperative classroom structure, teachers must change some of their own behaviors (Hertz-Lazarowitz, 1992). It is not a defensible practice to simply put students in groups and then teach in your traditional manner, without consideration of the fact that the students will be working as groups rather than as individuals. Teachers should also consider the possibility of pursuing some objectives and activities that would be less practical in a non-cooperative environment. For example, it may be possible to work focus on the development of thinking skills rather than factual knowledge or to take advantage of the cultural background that individual members bring to each small group.

Online Links:
Cooperative Learning

The Charismatic Disciplinarian

Is it possible that the ability to maintain discipline is a personality trait? Most of us can look back at the teachers from out childhood, and most of the teachers who had few discipline problems seemed to be "naturals" - and some of the teachers who had constant discipline seemed to be so out of control that they were beyond hope. Actually, the teachers with few discipline problems probably followed most of the guidelines in this chapter. That is, they managed the classroom effectively to minimize disruptions. When disruptions occurred, they handled them effectively. To the extent that the ability to manage a classroom borders on being a charisma or a personality characteristic, it would be difficult to quickly become a better disciplinarian by following a set of instructions. Table 13.2 lists the major guidelines described in this chapter and indicates the degree to which each of these involves a personality characteristic or a learned skill. As you can see, in a few cases (e.g., with-it-ness) the teacher's personality plays a very important role. In other cases (e.g., avoiding the waste of time) the teacher's personality play almost no role at all. In most cases. however, it takes a combination of a flexible, open, non-anxious personality and an adherence to guidelines to prevent discipline problems and to solve them effectively when they do arise. It is also important to keep in mind that some problems will persist no matter how well you perform.

1. Minimize waste time. (Almost entirely a learnable set of skills. See guidelines earlier in this chapter.)

2. Give directions prior to tasks, so that students can complete these tasks correctly and efficiently. (Almost entirely a learnable set of skills. See guidelines earlier in this chapter.)

3. Maintain continuity of lessons by managing transitions effectively. (Almost entirely a learnable skill. See guidelines earlier in this chapter. However, the personality characteristics of some teachers may make it difficult to apply this set of skills.)

4. Monitor all the students all the time. (Although it may seem that personality characteristics of some teachers would make it hard for them to follow this guideline, the more detailed guidelines described earlier in this chapter show that almost any teacher can develop a high degree of skill in this regard by managing the classroom's physical arrangement, proximity, etc.)

5. Improve the quality of instruction. (This guideline requires a learnable set of skills, but becoming a better teacher would certainly take a longer time and greater effort than some of the other guidelines in this table.)

6. Make students accountable for their performance. (This is sometimes difficult, but teachers can certainly learn to follow the guidelines described earlier in this chapter.)

7. Model effective study strategies. (It would seem that any teacher could do this simply by remembering to do so.)

8. Demonstrate with-it-ness. (This one is largely a personality characteristic.)

9. Show respect for your students. (While some people can do this more easily than others and personality is certainly important, any teacher can do this. However, they will do this in different ways, and students may sometimes have difficulty recognizing and returning this respect.)

10. Maintain an atmosphere of legitimate authority. (This one is largely a personality characteristic.)

11. Anticipate the problem, and take simple steps to prevent the disruption. (This can be learned through proper planning; but some teachers - for example, those with "one-track-minds" - will have more trouble than others.)

12. Use nonverbal signals to stop a misbehavior at its beginning. (The strategy can be learned, but the ability to know when to apply this strategy involves with-it-ness, which is largely a personality characteristic.)

13. Praise correct behaviors that are incompatible with disruptive behaviors. (This skill can be learned, but some teachers will have more trouble than others knowing when to apply it.)

14. Praise other students for correct behaviors that are incompatible with disruptive behaviors. (This skill can be learned, but some teachers will have more trouble than others knowing when to apply it.)

15. Simple verbal reminders immediately after or even during the misbehavior. (This skill can be learned, but some teachers will have more trouble than others knowing when to apply it.)

16. Watch for the misbehavior, and immediately issue a verbal reminder every time it occurs. (This skill can be learned, but some teachers may sound more like nags than others, and this will reduce the effectiveness of the strategy.)

17. Know the principles of behavior modification and apply them correctly. (Any reader of this book can do this.)

18. Obtain information and professional help to deal with serious problems. (Any teacher can do this, but only if the information and help are available.)

Table 13.2 Discipline: Personality or Skill? Strategies of teachers who maintain effective discipline and the degree to which teachers themselves have control over them.

The personality characteristics demanded of a teacher in order to maintain effective classroom discipline are very much analogous to the cognitive styles of learners, discussed in Chapter 9. Impulsivity, for example, is a cognitive style that influences how students learn. It borders on being a personality characteristic; but students can learn to become more reflective, and this will enable them to learn more effectively in situations that require more careful analysis of information before taking action. Likewise, teachers can benefit from developing a higher degree of with-it-ness; but acquiring with-it-ness will take a longer time and more effort than will the implementation of most of the other guidelines. To improve their skills at maintaining effective classroom disciplinarian, teachers should try to implement all of the guidelines described in Table 13.2. They should expect almost immediate gains from some and long-range but important gains from others. In addition, overall maturity of the personality is likely to help teachers manage their classrooms, much as general maturity can help any manager deal with complex tasks involving human relations.

Other Factors That Influence Classroom Management

 

Student mobility. Students enrolling in (or leaving) schools at unpredictable times cause disruptions in classroom management and planning for instruction. Lash & Kirkpatrick (1990) offer specific suggestions for dealing with this problem.

 

Trick and hostile questions. Incredibly enough, students sometimes bait or taunt teachers with questions and comments during class presentations. This problem is discussed in Chapter 15. Guidelines in Martel (1989) will help teachers deal with such questions.

 

Resistance. Counselors who work with clients in either individual counseling or group therapy often encounter resistance from their clients. This means that the clients may display emotional tendencies to oppose the process of change that is the goal of the counseling process. To a certain extent, teaching resembles counseling; and many of the disruptive behaviors shown by students can be viewed as examples of resistance. (See Rosenthal & Rosenthal, 1991.) Teachers can employ counseling strategies (often based on functional analysis, described in Chapter 10) to deal with these problems.

 

What Teachers, Parents, and Students Can Do about Discipline

(To be added.)

Summary

(To be added)

Annotated Bibliography

 

Brophy, J.E. & Evertson, C.M. (1976). Learning from Teaching: A Developmental Perspective. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Emmer, E.T., Evertson, C.M., Sanford, J.P., Clements, B., and Worsham, M.E. (1989). Classroom Management for Secondary Teachers. (2nd Ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. This book summarizes and integrates a large amount of research by the authors and others on the topic of classroom management for secondary teachers.

Evertson, C.M., Emmer, E.T., Clements, B., Sanford, J.P., and Worsham, M.E. (1989). Classroom Management for Elementary Teachers. (2nd Ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. This book summarizes and integrates a large amount of research by the authors and others on the topic of classroom management for elementary teachers.

Hill, D.J. (1988). Humor in the Classroom. Springfield, IL: Charles Thomas. This book offers both theoretical insights and practical guidelines to help inject humor into their classrooms.

Johnson, D.W., Johnson, R.T, Dudley, B., & Burnett, R. (1992). Teaching students to be peer mediators. Educational Leadership, 50(1), 10-13. This article provides a brief description of guidelines to teach students strategies of negotiation and mediation, which will eventually lead them to develop skills of self-regulation of their classroom behavior. A more detailed, specific curriculum for accomplishing these goals is found in Johnson and Johnson (1991).

Jones, V.F. & Jones, L.S. (1989). Comprehensive Classroom Management (3rd Ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon. This is a comprehensive but clearly understandable treatment of classroom management at grade levels K-12. It includes a large number of practical examples.

Kounin, E.R. (1970). Discipline and Group Management in Classrooms. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. This book may seem to be ancient but it is still considered to be one of the most practical yet authoritative collection of principles on discipline and classroom management.

Sulzer-Azaroff, B. & Mayer, G.R. Achieving Educational Excellence Using Behavioral Strategies. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. This book gives a comprehensive but easily understood statement of principles for applying behavior modification principles to classroom situations.

Wyne, M.D. and Stuck, G.B. (1982). Time and Learning: Implications for the classroom teacher. Elementary School Journal, 1982, 83, 67-75. This article presents a good, detailed discussion of the principles of time management at the elementary school level.