The Classroom Management Issues: Analysis and Rectification Ideas - Essay Example

room Management Issues 1 The Classroom Management Issues in Mr.Jones’ Class Analysis and Rectification Ideas Classroom Management Issues 2 Introduction to Classroom Management: Teaching and learning are two processes interlinked closely with each other. The success of an effective and well organised teaching lies in the classroom management of the concerned teacher, which in turn will bring a disciplined atmosphere in the classroom. At the same time the effect of teaching and classroom management should be regularly monitored without receiving a negative response from the students, in terms of punishments. The issues that would generally arise in a classroom atmosphere are [i]. lack of disciplined behaviour, [ii]. Undermining the instructor’s authority, [iii]. Monopolising discussions, [iv]. Sleeping in the class, [v]. Repeated tardiness, [vi].refusal to participate, [vii] disrespectful behaviour etc.[ Rodriguez, Lisa. 2006] Classroom management is such a difficult but effective job that the result of which will end up in a peaceful and useful atmosphere. The classroom management needs to regularize the other aspects of a class, which are also major components of a classroom management. They are behavior of the student, arrangement of the benches inside the classroom, student-teacher interaction while the lecture proceeds, etc. All these components needed to be monitored as well in order to bring a successful atmosphere. Issues Identified in Mr.Jone’s Classroom: [1]. The concept of always enjoying in his classroom -seems to quiet unacceptable, because the students in his class talk of the time spend in his class, as funny and enjoying and different. Because the talk of enjoyment or fun making should not remain as a Permanente feature, this would result in the students slowly loosing the seriousness in Classroom Management Issues 3 their studies, in other words the students would always treat his class as a means of enjoyment not as educative. [ii]. The lack of discipline in the presence of another science teacher, whom Mr.Jones invites to demonstrate some of the experiments for the students. [iii]. Lack of response from many students- this could be understood from only 20students responding to the experiments being useful. [iv]. Refusal to participate- This aspect or issue could be seen form the distracted behavior of Geoffrey, David, Annie and Bruce. Where Geoffrey fiddles with the materials kept for the experiment, Annie tries to draw something in a paper and looks at the front of the room –this reflects that she is not interested in the class, David seems to look at the visitor but not actually interested, while Bruce tries to stop Annie and suggests that she would do it in a better way, meanwhile John and Andrew go towards the computer turning it on and start paying games in that. This is the striking and key issue identified in Mr. Jones’s classroom. [v]. While this issues remains on one side, Mr.Jones himself is found enjoying the company of the visitor teacher, they stand by the corner of the classroom and comment that they have done something useful to make these children participate and learn a lot, without attending the students individually, whether every one of them so really learn or not. Their conversation or chat is focused more in terms of enjoyment that the students would have but in reality they do not seem to concentrate on whether all the students really do take part in the class or not. As the students are in middle primary level they Classroom Management Issues 4 have the tendency to watch what is going on behind them and children of this age group might be imitating what the teacher do in the classroom. If he is found to be standing in the corner and talking with the visitor teacher, the students will also pay less attention to the class. Outline Plan for management of the Behavior of students In Mr.Jones’ classroom: The planning should be done by the concerned class teacher, because he plays the leading role in maintaining the behavioral management in a classroom. The plan will be manifested for five consecutive days, the plan is as follows Date of the Plan: 15-10-2006 Class: Science Class. Period: One Hour Daily Starting Date: 15-10-2006 Ending Date: 20-10-2006 Objective of the plan: 1. To make all the students take part in the learning process 2. To control or change the behavior into alterable classroom variable. 3. To make Geoffrey, David, Annie, Bruce, John and Andrew change their attitude by showing personal care and concern 4. Finally to avoid punishments as far as possible. Expected Outcome of the Plan: 1. To find Geoffrey and others obey the teacher’s instruction Classroom Management Issues 5 2. To emphasize the importance of an experiment class, without expecting the aspect of only enjoying. Target Results: To get positive response from all the students regarding the assistance they get from conducting each experiment and to show alterable changes in the behaviour of Geoffrey, Annie, Andrew, John, Bruce and David. Activities Involved to Carryout the Plan: Activity Monitoring First Day [15-10-2006]- Talking to each one of them about how to obey the teacher and listen to the class and at the same time giving them a slight warning that they might be punished. But punishment should not be the main intension. Rationale – When you talk to the students individually and personally they will develop a special concern for the teacher .Since they are primary students advising them individually will definitely end up in a positive mode. This will help in understanding what is the real reason behind the lack of interest in them? More over a teacher could make classroom atmosphere interesting according to the genuine needs of the students. Second Day [16-10-2006]- Separating the students into groups and making the problematic to be leader of the group Rationale: Separating them into groups might and making one leader will develop a sense of responsibility. This will show alterable change in their outlook and behavior. A sense of responsibility should be identified in each on of them. Third Day [17-10-2006]- Making arrangements to sit separately and do individual experiment. While not allowing sitting over the computer. Rationale: Individual exercise would make some students develop a serious attitude and fear of understanding. Doing individual work will reflect every one’s rate of interest and what they have been following so far. Whether they have observed at least to an extent or not could be understood. Fourth Day [18-10-2006]-Acknowledging in terms of awards to only those students who do not play with the experiment materials and who return them safely. Awards might include an article to play, new pens, pencils, pencil boxes etc. Rationale: Giving them prizes would surely have a strong impact on the students and would result in enthusiasm and competence. Sense of competence will never allow them to misbehave in a class,. It needs close observation of each one of them in terms of how do they react over this aspect, whether they are really satisfied with the prizes they receive or what else they expect as prize etc. could be understood. Fifth Day [19-10-2006]- Making arrangements for a similar class and watching their behavior. This includes comparison of the previous behavior and the alterable changes in behavior found in the students after the plan has been carries out. Reinforcement Procedures: 1. The teacher should immediately appreciate a student if he or she is found out to be obedient and studious. 2. The teacher should also instruct the other students to encourage the obedient and the studious. 3. The teacher should have prizes in hand so that he or she could award them immediately to the students. 4. Class Performance Chart should be displayed inside the classroom itself. Materials Needed: Class Performance Chart with all the students; name mentioned there. This chart should also contain the number of hours that will be taken in a week and the performance shown and the awards received by the students in every class. The number of prizes received by each student on each day of the plan should be noted down for review. Classroom Management Issues 8 Class Performance Chart: Name of the Student Awards received on 15-10-2006 Awards received on 16-10-2006 Awards received on 17-10-2006 Awards received on 18-10-2006 Awards received on 19-10-2006 Geoffrey Annie Andrew Bruce John David Total Number of Awards Received Classroom and Behavioural Management have certain strategies which could be achieved only by constant monitoring. So a plan needs both manifestations of the ideas as well as evaluating the constant results as early as possible. A student-teacher relationship has to be kept under smooth control as well as good understanding, because this Classroom Management Issues 9 relationship would determine a disciplined classroom atmosphere. At the same time a student should be trained by his concerned teacher to maintain a balance between increasing his interest towards developing his skills in learning and improving his behaviour in the better side. On the whole a safe learning environment should be created for the students. Establishing class schedules and activities, records and charts to note down alterable behaviour, providing prices to students are some of the strategies told to teachers and behaviour managers. The PARA website has fount the above theories concerning the behaviour management and through this a teacher could establish a reliable approach and result in the students. Making the students [who are found out to be less interactive in the classroom] participate in as many activities as possible , giving them responsibilities, announcing and implementing award system are the rationale found out for this plan. Student related behavioural issues reflects two things, first the relationship between the student and the teacher not travelling in the same path and secondly the student portraying himself or herself as basically problem creating or rash towards their respective teachers. But in the case of MR.Jones’s students they are primary level students and their behaviour could be changes easily, as children of this age group are liable to listen to the advices. To over come these issues many literatures talk in terms of suggesting a student problem solving activity rather than punishing them. Short [1988] has noted that “Research on well-disciplined schools indicates that a student-cantered Classroom Management Issues 10 environment, incorporating teacher students problem solving activities, as well as activities to promote student self-esteem and belongingness is more effective in reducing behaviour problems than punishment” [p-3] As mentioned and included in the plan individual attention has to be given appropriately because this would result in effective behavioural changes of the students. The classroom atmosphere has to be maintained in such a way that no student, even he or she might be less disciplined should be paid attention to in order to get a complete achievement in organizing a management plan. This should also include students participation as a main aspect. Duke [1989] has to say that “Rules, sanctions, and procedures are discussed, debated, and frequently formalized into school discipline and classroom management plans. To balance this emphasis on formal procedure, the climate in these organisations conveys concern fro students as individuals. This concern manifests itself in a variety of ways, including efforts to involve students in school decision-making, school goals that recognize multiple forms of student achievement, and de-emphasis on homogenous grouping [p-47] One more issue found out form the classroom of Mr.Jones was that he himself not attentive to notice the behaviour of all students, though he points out Geoffrey, at a single glance, most of the time he seems to be conversing with the visitor teacher, without practically realising that some of the students are not actually interested in the class, he might have had this opinion because he had been finding them always enjoying Classroom Management Issues 11 in his class. Edward s. Shapiro, Christine L.Cole [1951] has noted that “Teachers may fail to notice many of a student’s behaviours and thus provide consistent cons equences for only a portion of his or her actions each day. As a result of this inconsistent responding, behaviour change may be slow at best or, at worst, nonexistent.”[ p-3] The success of a classroom atmosphere and the best behavioural outcome of student depend mainly on how the teacher plans and applies his management plans. The responsibilities of the teachers remain always in the growing level. Macciomei, R. Nancy.& Ruben, H. Douglas [1999 ] argues that “Teachers not only have the challenge of educating all children within the regular classroom but they also grapple with the question of how to respond to diverse learning needs and abilities among those children”. Classroom managers or teachers should organise their plans always based on the student related activities, every time when they implement their plan they should see to it that all the students take part in that. Kounin, J. S 1970] has observed that “Withitness”, “Overlapping”, “Smoothness and Momentum in Lessons”, “Group Alerting” and “Stimulating Seat Work” would work effectively in bringing out best behavioural outcomes of a student. He means to say that communicating with the students all the time as what is going on every minute in the class, trying to implement as many activities as possible so that the students might not get diverted, attending to those students who seem to be less attentive ain the classroom, creating alertness among the disinterested students, and providing them individual work Classroom Management Issues 12 or activity for each student in their own seat. These are the implications of the activities which imply his ideas given above respectively. The system of rewarding also found out to be effective in bringing out best behavioural changes among the students, literatures also recommends this system of rewarding. If it is in the case of children between the age group 5-10 rewards might be given in terms of presents or gifts, if children are of the age group 11-15 they could be given bonus marks specially for their discipline. This idea is also stressed by Atkenson and Forehand[1979] in their review, "Home-Based Reinforcement Programs Designed to Modify Classroom Behaviour: A Review and Methodological Evaluation." Some of the plans suggested by Cotton ,Kathleen [1990] has observed some of the strategies as effective in the case of planning a classroom management, such as “maintaining a brisk instructional pace and make smooth transitions between activities, monitor classroom activities and give students feedback and reinforcement regarding their behaviour, create opportunities for students [particularly those with behavioural problems experience success in their learning and social behaviour, identify those students who seem to lack a sense of personal efficacy and work to help them achieve an internal locus of control, make use of cooperative learning groups as appropriate and remove distracting materials (athletic equipment, art materials, etc.) from view when instruction is in progress etc,. Creating and implementing learning activities such as announcing the scheme of classes, reward system and continuous monitoring with the idea of encouraging the Classroom Management Issues 13 students who are found to be showing less interest towards learning and participation will work out successfully, because as many researchers suggests punishment will never end up in a positive feedback. Encouragement on the other hand will make the students to behave in a disciplined fashion, as their concentration will turn towards learning a lot, other than always enjoying. As far as Geoffrey is concerned, he seemed to be strong over his actions and never shows a sign of respect for the teacher’s words. So he should be selected and given the responsibility of a leader, by doing so he might not think of distracting or breaking the materials, instead he might concentrate on monitoring his own group and the materials given for experiment. Annie might not divert her attention over drawing something, she rather would concentrate on her group performing the work, similarly David and others will also show improvement and interest if they are fixed as group leaders. Even if these students are instructed to do their work individually they might show some seriousness in improving their understanding by asking their doubts regarding the subject without distracting others. References: Atkeson, B. M., and Forehand, R. "Home-Based Reinforcement Programs Designed to Modify Classroom Behavior: A Review and Methodological Evaluation." Psychological Bulletin 86/6 (1979) Cotton, Kathleen. “Schoolwide and Classroom Discipline” School Improvement Research Series .Online available from http://www.nwrel.org/scpd/sirs/5/cu9.html Edward s. Shapiro, Christine L.Cole 1951 ] 1–Behavior Change in the Classroom:Self-managemnet interventions/1994 The Guilford Press, A Division OF Guilford Publications, Inc. 72 Spring Street, New York, NY- 10012 Macciomei, R. Nancy.& Ruben, H. Douglas 1999 ] “Behavioral Management in the Public Schools : An Urban Approach” Praeger Publishers 88 Post Road West , Westport, CT 06881 Duke, D. L. "School Organization, Leadership, and Student Behavior." In Strategies to Reduce Student Misbehavior, edited by Oliver C. Moles. Washington, DC: Office of Educational Research and Improvement, 1989, 31-62. Kounin, J. S. Discipline and Group Management in Classrooms. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1970. Macciomei, R. Nancy.& Ruben, H. Douglas 1999 ] “Behavioral Management in the Public Schools : An Urban Approach” Praeger Publishers 88 Post Road West , Westport, CT 06881 Project PARA Training Resources for Paraeducators. “Planning and Coordinating Behaviour Management” online available from http://para.unl.edu/para/Behavior/lesson2.html Rodriguez, Lisa. Ph.D . “Classroom Management”. Online available from http://www.4faculty.org/includes/images/solutionstable.pdf Short, P. M. "Effectively Disciplined Schools: Three Themes From Research." NASSP Bulletin 72/504 (1988) Read More