2 Things Teachers Must Do for Effective Classroom Management
Posted by PLB Registrar · 2 Comments
A great deal of what we might call classroom management style comes from attitudes and pedagogical choices. Classroom management effectiveness is defined as a learning environment that promotes learning, motivation, and collective function.
Classroom management dysfunction is defined as any event, behavior, pattern, feeling, or thought that prevents a teacher from being able to teach to their fullest potential or keeps the class from learning in a most effective manner.
CREATE CLARITY
Most of the outcomes desired in classrooms depend in a great extent on the teacher’s ability to promote clarity within our environment. Clarity within the classroom has been found to correlate positively with student achievement, level of engagement, and student satisfaction (Hines, Cruickshank, & Kennedy, 1985; Sindler et al., 2009). And most classroom management dysfunction is related to a lack of clarity in some form.
The existence of clarity can be seen to mitigate dysfunction in four key areas:
First, students need clear expectations. Without them they are forced to guess. This can create a vacuum in expectations, which students fill with their own ideas of conduct. When we use abstract terms such as responsibility, respect, or “good behavior,” without defining those concepts in a concrete and material way, these ideas remain only abstractions. Much of what we call misbehavior is simply students guessing how to act in ways that we do not like (i.e., their guess was wrong!).
Second, the teacher needs to infuse a sense of intention and movement to the class. When the class experiences the deliberate movement toward a goal they are much less likely to be bored, distracted, or feel their work lacks purpose.
Third, students need to be given clear boundaries. Boundaries help students understand where lines exist (Bluestein, 1999). In their absence, problems arise. In part, this is due to the fact that inevitably students come to any class with a wide range of previously learned behavior and expectation for boundaries.
Fourth, abstractions such as respect, listening, effort, responsibility, etc., need to be “operationalized” or they will remain only abstractions. Many teachers complain that their students lack these traits, yet do not make the concepts concrete and practical for their students. Clarity can only exist in a concrete and observable world. Words can only point to behavior. Clarity, therefore, requires an intentional effort on the part of the teacher to make the abstract, conceptual and assumed into something that is concrete, behavioral, personally relevant and jointly shared.
A teacher who follows through and consistently implements consequences is essentially making the concrete and practical statement that the agreement (i.e., our social contract, class rules, bill or rights, etc.) is primary and the teacher’s subjective interpretation is secondary.
When we are working with a student or a class to help shape behavior, reinforcing more functional behavior is necessary. In many cases, even a small amount of contradictory reinforcement can undermine our efforts. Consistency helps clarify the cause and effect thinking we are trying to build. Inconsistency confuses it.
Related to consistency, a useful principle to maintain as a teacher is that “it is not the severity of the consequence that will make it effective, it is the certainty.” Consider the consequences that we negotiate everyday. Typically we take those that are certain more seriously than those that are more severe but less likely.
For example, imagine if you were a driver who had a tendency to drive faster than the speed limit; which intervention would be more likely to modify your behavior:
OR
If your car were equipped with a meter that fined you $1 for every mile your car went over the limit?
From Professional Learning Board’s online continuing education course for teachers: Transformative Classroom Management: Positive Strategies to Engage All Students
Yes I too was confused by the term, operationalized.
Debra, I think that the term “operationalized” is referring to developing a protocol of sorts so that the abstract can be made more concrete. Thanks for your comment!