Classroom Management and Discipline for a Diverse Student Population - Research Paper Example

?EFFECTIVE ROOM MANAGEMENT This is a research paper on how the teacher can ensure effective management of the room: certifying that the diversities of all students are catered for and that discipline is also instilled in all learners. The call for effective classroom management is very important and timely because almost all classroom environments are heterogeneous with a make up students with different learning needs and behaviour. Zieber (2009) observes that “in a heterogeneous grouped class, there are strategies on how to work with and form a strong mixed level learning environment.” This is to say that, there should be arrangement made by the teacher to ensure that there is a mixture of activities, lessons and teaching approaches that satisfies the individual needs of all learners. Three diversities of learner needs have been considered. These diversities are in the areas of learner achievement levels, socio-cultural background of learners and health needs of learners. Reasons why it is important for the teacher to ensure that there is an environment to cater for diversities in all the three areas of learner needs have been elaborated. Again, the research suggests specific approaches to be used by teachers to ensure accommodation and adaptation for differences in all three areas of learner diversity. The research closes by examining how the teacher can also cater for different learner behaviours to foster discipline in the class. Three theories have been reviewed and corresponded to how they can solve three persistent classroom related undisciplined behaviours that a teacher encounters on a regular basis. The behaviours looked at are absenteeism, inattentiveness in class and bullying. Having the managerial skills to tackle all forms of learner behaviour is very important to ensure that the classroom lives up to a desired learning atmosphere and that all learners leave the classroom each day with fulfilled dreams of going to school. Overview Day in an out, the face of teaching as a profession keeps changing; becoming more and challenging to meet the changing learning needs of students. Years past, learning was seen as the responsibility of the student. The teacher was therefore seen as a conveyer of information for the student to learn – by whatever means the student could make himself understand what the teacher teaches. Because of this, teachers went about teaching in a whole-class approach, leaving the responsibility of understanding lessons to the student. In that era, examinations were put in place to test which students learnt what the teacher taught and which students did not learn. Today, that is no more. The teacher is now seen as part of the child’s learning process with the responsibility of ensuring that his teaching meets the learning needs of the student. Today, the teacher is seen as a facilitator who is to ensure that the student understands his teaching – by whatever means the teacher could make himself understood. Examination has therefore become a test of which teacher could meet learning needs of students. In order to meet the individual needs of the classroom population, teachers are putting away whole-class teaching approaches for diversity approached. Teachers are now required to adopt diversity approach to meet the learning needs of all learners in the classroom. According to Crawley (2006), A “diversity approach aims to recognize, value and manage difference to enable all learners to contribute and realize their full potential.” It is the aim of this research paper therefore, to investigate into various learning theories to find out how they support the concept of diversity approach in classroom situations. This will be done by delving into what diversity is, areas of classroom experiences the teacher is likely to meet diversity and the importance of catering for diversity in the classroom. There shall then be analyzes of best practices for effective classroom management to minimize disruptive behavior and increase learning in the diverse classroom population. Diversity in the Classroom Diversity, a rather not so important issue in the recent past has today become a major issue for consideration in the teaching-learning process. This is so because in the view of Winship (2009), “All of us have multiple identities—professional and/or disciplinary identities, our roles in families, membership in social organizations and/or faith communities that are important to us.” So as the classroom become more and accessible to the wider community, there is the need to factor into the routines of the classroom, the need for to satisfy each person’s differences. The University of Tennessee Libraries Diversity Committee (2003), defines diversity as “a commitment to recognizing and appreciating the variety of characteristics that make individuals unique in an atmosphere that promotes and celebrates individual and collective achievement.” Relating this to the classroom, any measures put in place to ensure that the individual differences of learners are met can be classified as diversity approach. The role of the teacher in ensuring diversity should be tackled from divergent perspective. These should be seen in lesson plan and preparation, lesson delivery, teacher-learner interactions, co-curricula and extra curricula activities, classroom management and every aspect of the classroom environment. The classroom represents the larger community in that it contains members of the community from and with different academic needs, different socio-cultural needs as well as health needs and addressing each of these differences comes with a lot of importance. One area that the teacher is likely to deal with diversity in the classroom environment is with the learning capabilities of students. Research has shown that a typical classroom population, though may be made up of students who started formal education at the same time have different learning abilities. According to Gardner, as quoted by Hampton (2009), “all human beings possess all intelligences in varying amounts. Each person has a different intellectual composition.” It is therefore necessary for the teacher to appreciate the need of satisfying all intelligence level in his class. The National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) of the United States Secretary of Education recognizes three achievement levels among students. These levels are basic, proficient and advanced. It is therefore a great responsibility for a classroom teacher to ensure that in the course of his teaching or classroom management, the needs of all these three levels are met without compromising on the needs of others. Ensuring that a teacher meets the different achievement levels of all students is an act of good classroom management. It assures the teacher of several advantages. In the first place, it creates a sense of belongingness among the learners in lessons taught. When students are not discriminated against on the basis of their achievement levels being high, they feel the need to be part of every lesson taught. If on the other hand the teacher does things that predict to the child that he or she is above or below the lesson, the child feels relax, sits back and not participate in the lesson and this of course is a poor management situation. Again, meeting the achievement needs of all the students at a go promotes healthy competition in the class. In a situation where there is no segregation according to achievement level, there becomes room for all achievement levels – basic, proficient and advanced to compete among themselves. This situation would of course lead to improved performance especially among basic achievers. Finally, satisfying the different achievement needs of students is a source of assessment for the teacher. This is seen when in the wake of events, students who otherwise where classified as low achievers begin to improve their performance. Another area of diversity the teacher is likely to deal with is with the socio-cultural background of students. The diversity in students’ socio-cultural background calls multicultural approach to education. Wilson (2010) defines multicultural education as “education and instruction designed for the cultures of several different races in an educational system.” This is an important aspect of diversity in the classroom especially in multi-cultural countries such as United States, Australia and Canada. As far back as the year 1995, researchers had predicted that “by the year 2000, more than 30 percent of the U.S. population will have a racial- or ethnic-minority background” (Office of Ethnic Minority Affairs, 1995 quoted by NCREL, 1998). According to the source, If the children of those families were evenly distributed across the nation's classrooms, a hypothetical class of 30 children would have 10 students from racial- or ethnic-minority groups; of these 10, six children would belong to families for whom English is not the home language, and two to four children would have limited English proficiency. (NCREL, 1998). The statistics above is an alarming situation for today’s teacher and poses a challenge to his sense of managerial competence. As globalization has sped up by the fast growing technology, the understanding, tolerance, respect and appreciation of each other's culture become an imperative for us to live peacefully as global citizens (Wan, 2006). As said early on, the classroom is a mock community and the usefulness of that environment is not just for acquiring knowledge. The need for the teacher to manage and control the socio-cultural differences in the classroom by showing the highest degree of integration in course content, course delivery and course assessment is a great responsibility without a compromise. The teacher must create an environment that ensures that no student looks down on the other by virtue of race, colour, language, belief, economic or social background. This must be ensured both among the students and in the teacher’s own conduct. Once achieved, a well managed classroom integration program on the basis of socio-cultural differences would ensure that the high rate school dropout and deviancy among a section of the socio-cultural group would seize. This is in the wake of research indicating that “ethnic minority students are disproportionately poor, dropping out of school, being suspended or expelled, and achieving far below their potential relative to the ethnic majority” (Bennett, 1995). Another advantage of ensuring that the socio-cultural needs are all students are met is the impact that this practice would have on the larger society – and this is a bigger advantage. Society has been looking for the solution to socio-cultural discrimination for a long time. It is high time the classroom was made the starting point because once children develop a sense of tolerance and belongingness, they live with that for the rest of their lives. The last aspect of diversity that will be looked in this report is in the area of health. This is an aspect of the classroom environment that most teachers easily overlook though it is a very sensitive area in their classroom management responsibilities. There are several health problems that students can live with in the classroom with those that easily inhibit learning being visual impairment, hearing defects, physical disability and mental health problems. According to the National PTA, "It is estimated that more than ten million children (ages 0-10) suffer from vision problems that may cause them to fail in school" (Leonard, 2000). There also are students who experience moderate level of hearing loss. According to the website www. go60.com, “Moderate hearing loss is the condition in which people are unable to keep up with a conversation while they are not wearing a hearing aid. Students that are experiencing a moderate level of hearing loss cannot understand the teacher’s speech without using a hearing aid.” A more alarming situation has to do with mental health. The statistics for mental ill-health among students is alarming and almost unbelievable. Kathy (2000) quotes a report from a recent research conducted by a group of American researchers. According to the report, “around 93 percent of students were found to be suffering from at least one mental disorder in 1998 with the number rising to 96 percent in August 2009.” These are all health problems that call for ingenuity in the teacher’s management skills to cater for. As much as possible, the teacher must be able to go about his teaching in such as way that students who have noticeable health problems are not disadvantaged. A teacher who is able to structure his teaching and classroom environment in such a way that all students with health problems are catered for ensures two major advantages. Once the teacher caters for the needs of the student with a health problem, the child develops confidence himself, seeing himself at par with colleagues. This will happen because such attention received would make the unhealthy student perform at the level of healthy students. Again, when students who have health problems see an effort by the teacher to cater for their needs in the classroom, their self esteem is developed. Most often than not, teachers neglect these unhealthy ones and make them feel inferior to their colleagues. Accommodations and Adaptations for Diversity Using the words interchangeably, Marsh et al (2001) explain accommodation and adaptation as a “changing the learning environment or the academic requirements so that the students may learn in spite of a fundamental weakness or deficiency.” In context of discussions had so far, accommodation and adaptation refer to ways of adjusting the learning (classroom in the broader sense) environment to cater for the needs of the three diverse groups of students discussed above. It is important to do equip the teacher with approaches to accommodate diversity in the classroom environment because having an awareness of the problem alone is not enough. If strategies are not devised to tackle the problems, the child will not benefit from the advantages discussed about. It is also important to note that the ability to accommodate and adapt to the diverse needs of students in class is one of the marks of good classroom management. A good teacher should have the ability to manage the needs of all students, especially those that not when managed would cause retardation in the child’s academic performance. There have been countless researches on how a teacher can handle children with high and low academic achievement levels in the classroom. The U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Special Education Research, National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2), Wave 1 student's school program survey, 2002 makes a list of diverse forms of accommodation that can be used to help students with some forms of learning difficulties (including high performers). The table below shows various accommodation strategies and how often they are used by teachers and parents. Types of accommodations and supports received by students with mental retardation, overall and by parent-reported levels of cognitive functioning Percentage received Overall High Moderate Low More time in taking test Additional tie to complete assignments Test read to students Slower-paced instruction Shorter or different assignments Modified tests Modified grading standards Alternative tests or assignments Modification to the physical aspects of the classroom 69 64 56 54 53 47 46 43 10 89 65 71 47 49 50 49 29 6 68 67 54 60 56 52 47 48 9 29 48 31 59 49 30 37 59 30 Credit: U.S Department of Education, 2002 (accessed: http://ies.ed.gov/ncser/pubs/20093020/tables/table_19.asp) Other researchers however have reservations about some of the accommodation strategies used above. Their area of concern has to do with labeling students with learning difficulties or superiorities. The NCREL (1998) argues that, “labeling a student with disabilities or relying on a standard description of a particular disability may prevent a teacher from accurately assessing the student's individual abilities.” They believe that there should be standardized assessment for all students in a particular grade or level. It should however be noted that accommodations are strategies put in place to help special needs or gifted students gradually adjust to the level of their grade and not to give them opportunities over other students. For this reason, there should be time bounds for using any of the accommodations. By the end of a particular time, the student who is being assisted must be able to achieve a certain level of competence else he or she is made to repeat class or introduced to new system of accommodation. On socio-cultural diversities, two broad approaches are suggested by researchers as to how to handle the situation in class. These approaches are the teacher-end and student-end accommodations. In the former, the teacher is expected to examine, evaluate and assess himself critically to ensure that he does not falter in anyway as far as lesson preparation, lesson delivery and lesson assessment are concerned. The teacher must have a very good knowledge of diverse socio-cultural issues and act as a role model, ensuring that students of all socio-cultures are catered for without the slightest sign of partiality or discrimination. In this regard, Chesler (2003) advises teachers to assess their “own level of consciousness and awareness of individual and institutional racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia and deciding what more we need or want to learn about our own cultural heritage and that of other groups.” After the teacher has firmly set the pace, he can then have the moral right to check for equality and cohesion among learners. In this regard, Ambe (2006) observes that “The leadership (who in this case is the teacher) has the responsibility of creating positive environments where multicultural initiatives can thrive.” As much as possible, the teacher must establish his command over the class, ensuring that students respect each other and that there is zero tolerance for discrimination. Petty classroom management strategies such as pairing students in a multicultural order for sitting position, assignments, projects and research work can be adopted. The should also be more lessons that try to portray the good aspects of different cultures, especially those that are found in the classroom. Finally, teachers can accommodate students with health problems in a number of ways. As far as students with health related problems are concerned, it is important that even before thinking about intervention, teachers think about ways of identifying the health problems. There are basic observational techniques teachers can use to expose health problems among learners. Leonard (2000) observes that Students who have eye teaming, tracking and focusing deficiencies often have complaints of dizziness, nausea, headaches, and/or red, burning and itchy eyes. They usually occur after the student is required to maintain visual concentration. As far as students with hearing defects are concerned, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, ASLHA (2010) lists signs of hearing loss or defect. These signs include frequently misunderstand what is said and want things repeated, having difficulty following verbal instructions and/or respond inconsistently, getting distracted easily, having difficulty listening or paying attention when there is noise in the background, having trouble identifying and/or localizing sounds and having behavior problems. As far as students with mental disorder are concerned, the Australian Disability Clearinghouse on Education and Training (ADCET) declares that mental disorder may vary in form, including “schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, anxiety, and personality disorders.” The group teaches that the problem may have symptoms “ranging from mild and episodic to severe and ongoing so that students may require academic accommodations at some times but not at others.” For teachers to accommodate these health situations, the accommodation strategies given in the table above may apply. However, there are other basic managerial teaching techniques that can be used. These include making students with visual and hearing disorders choose places in the class where when they sit, they may find it easier seeing or hearing the teacher from the front of the class. Marsh et al (2001) also such that “teachers can use technology and media in classrooms to support their presentations. A large number of teachers rarely use any form of media.... For any child, and particularly those dependent on multiple sources of information, this is extremely detrimental to learning.” Classroom management practices with Theoretical models and philosophical stances Though a great deal of classroom management lies in catering for the diverse needs of students as discussed above, another area of classroom management that cannot be overlooked or underestimated is discipline in the classroom environment. The classroom is not just made up of children with diversity of needs but also students with diversity of behaviour. It is the duty of the teacher therefore, to nurture all behavioural characteristics of learners. To effectively do this, there are several management theories, models and philosophies that have been propounded by scholars, philosophers and researchers. These theories and models seek to make the work of the teacher as a manager in the classroom more complete and easier. Three prominent theorists whose theories will be applied in our discussion are Mendler and Cuwin, Jacob Kounin and Jeannie Gibbs. The theories of these three people shall be considered and linked to how the teacher can effectively manage three prevailing behavioural and disciplinary situations in the classroom, which are attendance, attentiveness and bullying. Classroom management has been explained in several ways. In the view of Richards (1998), classroom management is ‘the ways in which pupil behavior, movement and interaction during a lesson are organized and controlled by the teacher to enable teaching to take place most effectively'. Classroom management aims at encouraging and establishing student self-control through a process of promoting positive student achievement and behaviour (INTIME, 2001). Simply put, classroom management refers to the procedures put together by the teacher to ensure that there is law and order in the classroom environment. As long as the teacher’s management skills are in place, students are expected to act in defined manner and obey simple rules. Students are not supposed to determine the pace of events in the classroom but the teacher. When all these are place, we say the teacher is managing his class and ensuring discipline. Attendance is an important aspect of schooling. Students must be in school to ensure that they are abreast with all that the teacher teaches. There however exist some students who have a disciplinary habit of constantly absenting themselves from school. A teacher who wants to achieve an all-round performing class must stamp his authority on such students and ensure that they change from their habit. To do this, Mendler and Curwin’s theory on classroom management may be applied. According to them, “to motivate students: be a role model. Nurture responsibility not obedience, be fair, give natural and logic consequence, be private, try for win-win situation, control anger, diffuse power struggle and develop plan.” In applying this classroom management theory, teachers must lay a lot of responsibility and in some cases, leadership positions with absentee students. There could be simple classroom positions such as becoming a group leader, a group secretary or even leaving them with reading tasks for the following day. Students have a natural quest that makes them like to take up positions or responsibilities. This theory therefore caters for absentees. As the theory suggests, the teacher will do this while ensuring that the student is not forced to obey but motivated to change. As managerial strategy, the teacher must always ensure that students are given the chance to reason for by themselves and to judge their actions. When students become convinced by their own conscience; through the guidance of the teacher to change, their change become permanent, mission oriented and exemplary to others. Still on managing absenteeism, other researchers have made useful suggestions as to how the teacher can manage this situation. Teach.Net, a teacher’s online resource on classroom management has an interesting managerial approach that can be used to tackle classroom problem such as absenteeism. In the approach contributed by Follansbees Sandra, a teacher would win the heart of a student’s parent (example the absentee student) by calling the parents and asking the parents to feel free to come over to the school to drop a question about the teacher’s teaching. This way, she claims the parents “will immediately become my ally”. For that reason, when the teacher call the parents at another time to complain of a problem, the parents will “come down hard on their child for making trouble in the class where the teacher cared enough to call.” This is a useful approach to getting parents to handle absenteeism of their wards by themselves. This approach instils trust of the teacher in the parents and gets the parents to becoming partners for change. Another classroom situation that most teachers face as far as discipline is concerned is inattentiveness on the part of students. The problem of inattentiveness in class exists among both students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and normal students. Characteristically, these students try to disrupt the attention of their colleagues by engaging them in conversation whiles the teacher is teaching. They may also be found hitting or pushing their friends for no apparent reason. To such students, teachers can apply Jacob Kounin’s theory of classroom management to assist them. According to the theory, “effective learning includes group alerting and accountability, high participation and smooth transitions.” In using this theory, the teacher must engage such students in activities that alert their maximum attention and alertness. This can include simple things as making them lead the class in reading sections and constantly throwing questions at them. When students know that a teacher may ask them questions at any point in time in the teaching process, they are always careful to concentrate on the lesson so that they do not humiliate themselves by showing their ignorance at answering questions. A teacher may also catch the attention of students by indirectly making students know that he has noticed their inattentiveness and that if they do not pay attention, they would be made to suffer for that. In this regard, a teacher may say; “I shall conduct a quick test after this lesson”, “I have spotted some students who will not go out for canteen because they are not paying attention”. This strategy is known by Kounin as the ripple effect. It casts judgment on the students to play attention knowing that there may be an effect to their inattentiveness. Other researchers have added their voice to the problem of inattentiveness in class and how the teacher can manage that. Smith et al (2010) observe that “Children with ADD/ADHD need structure, consistency, clear communication, and rewards and consequences for their behaviour. They also need lots of love, support, and encouragement.” They advice teachers to starts with evaluating each child’s individual weaknesses and strengths, then coming up with creative strategies for helping the child focus, stay on task, and learn to his or her full capability (Smith et al, 2010). This call reiterates the need for the teacher to manage the class by identifying the individual needs of students and finding ways to get students focused on tasks that best interest them. Teachers must not force activities or tasks on students but must learn to identify individual tasks and activities that interest students and encourage students to stick with these tasks. The final group of undisciplined students to be looked at is bullies. In the view of Clair (2010), “Bullies usually have a sense of entitlement and superiority over others, and lack compassion, impulse control and social skills. They enjoy being cruel to others and sometimes use bullying as an anger management tool.” This group of students can really be a pain in the neck of other students and if not checked, may even be the reason why some students will be truants or absentees. According to the 2010 Federal Bullying Prevention Summit, “every day, 160,000 students stay home out of fear of getting bullied at school” (Mazzola, 2010). Bullying may even be the reason why some students will change school or drop out of school all together. This is why it is an important thing for a teacher to ensure that bullying is done away in his class. To tackle bullying, Jeanie Gibbs’s “Tribes” theory may be applied. The theory includes “an emphasis on active listening, appreciation, mutual respect, the right to pass, a helping attitude, setting goals, monitoring progress and celebrating accomplishments.” The most important aspects of the theory to tackling bullying are appreciation and mutual respect. Students why bully do not have respect for the children they bully. They do not appreciate them and in some cases, they look down on them based on their background. To manage the situation then, a teacher may intentionally assign responsibilities to students who are bullied, ensuring that those who bully them serve under them. When the bully realizes that the bullied is respected by the teacher and elevated by him, they would appreciate the need to respect them and perhaps earn their positions. Other researchers have also contributed to ways of managing bullies in school. According to the Department for Children, Schools and Families of the United Kingdom, “It is compulsory for schools to have measures in place to encourage good behaviour and respect for others on the part of pupils, and to prevent all forms of bullying” (DCSF, 2009). In this direction, Kaha (201) suggests that to control bullying, “Remove the bully from the environment, see they know why they are being excluded; Have the bully reflect on reasons for the isolation; Ask the offender to write a letter home explaining why he / she has been isolated; Check that the letter goes beyond "Because ‘victim’ narked on me". This management strategy can best be linked with Carter’s Assertive Discipline where teachers must be firm on decisions get certain behaviors stopped. According to Carter, “Assertive Teachers clearly and firmly express their needs. They have positive expectations of students. They say what they mean, and mean what they say.” Finally, A.S.A.P.: A School-based Anti-Violence Program (1996) give certain recommendations to teachers. According to the group, teachers can manage bullying by “providing good supervision for children; providing all children opportunities to develop good interpersonal skills; and creating a social context which is supportive and inclusive, in which aggressive, bully behaviour is not tolerated by the majority.” Summary and Concluding Discussion This research study has been about classroom management. The teacher’s role to effectively manage his class was seen in two broad aspects. The first aspect had to do with the teacher, satisfying the individual needs of the students whiles the second had to do with the teacher handling the individual behaviour of students. The classroom was classified as a mock community made up of people from different background and so the need for the teacher’s managerial task to cater for students’ diversity in the areas of academic achievement level, socio-cultural background and health needs. Step-by-step approaches to achieving these responsibilities were analysed. Finally, three major areas of student behaviour were looked at. These areas were absenteeism, inattentiveness and bullying. These three behaviours of students have a lot of implication on the success of students at school and so the need to manage them carefully. Specific classroom management theories that have bearing with the behaviours were analysed in relation to the behaviours and specific management strategies suggested. Based on these discussions, the researcher reiterates the fact that among other factors, the success of the student lies with the teacher’s management skills and how they are properly implemented. Teachers must therefore continue to get themselves abreast with newer approaches and theories that will help them cater for their class more effectively to ensure that the basic aim of educating the student is achieved. REFERENCES A.S.A.P.: A School-based Anti-Violence Program, 1996. 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Diversity Definition. accessed on 14th February, 2011 from http://www.lib.utk.edu/diversity/diversity_definition.html U.S Department of Education, 2002. Types of accommodations and supports received by students with mental retardation, overall and by parent-reported levels of cognitive functioning. Accessed on February 19 2011 from http://ies.ed.gov/ncser/pubs/20093020/tables/table_19.asp Wan G. 2006. Teaching diversity and tolerance in the classroom: a thematic storybook approach. accessed on February 18 2011 from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3673/is_1_127/ai_n29301581/ Wilson, K. (2010). Multicultural Education. Accessed on 17th February, 2011 from http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/papers/keith.html Winship J. 2009. Becoming Increasingly Aware of our own Identities and Fears as We Teach about Diversity Issues. accessed on 16th February, 2011 from http://www.uww.edu/learn/diversity/selfawareness.php Zieber M. 2009. A Quick Glimpse of Heterogeneous Grouped Classes. Accessed on February 19 2011 from http://www.suite101.com/content/a-quick-glimpse-of-heterogeneous-grouped-classes-a102249 Read More