Classroom Management Theorists

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Classroom Management Theorists

• Prepared by
• Professor J. McNair

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Dreikurs Principal Teachings

• Discipline at its best is defined as
  self-control, based on social interest.
• Self-controlled students are able to show
  initiative, make reasonable decisions, and assume
  responsibility in ways that benefit both
  themselves and others.
• Social interest refers to students' efforts to
  make the classroom comfortable and productive,
  based on understanding that such classrooms
  better meet their personal needs.

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Dreikurs Principal Teachings

• Good discipline occurs best in a democratic
  classroom.
• A democratic classroom is one in which teacher
  and students work together to make decisions
  about how the class will function.
• Good discipline cannot occur in autocratic or
  permissive classrooms.

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Dreikurs Principal Teachings

• In autocratic classrooms, the teacher makes all
  decisions and imposes them on students, leaving
  no opportunity for student initiative and
  responsibility.
• In permissive classrooms, the teacher fails to
  require that students comply with rules, conduct
  themselves humanely, or endure consequences for
  their misbehavior.

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Dreikurs Principal Teachings

• Almost all students have a compelling desire to
  feel they are a valued member of the class, that
  they belong.
• Students sense belonging when the teacher and
  others give them attention and respect, involve
  them in activities, and do not mistreat them.
• When students are unable to gain a sense of
  belonging in the class, they often turn to the
  mistaken goals of attention, power, revenge, and
  inadequacy.

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Dreikurs Principal Teachings

• When seeking attention, students talk out, show
  off, interrupt others, and demand teacher
  attention.
• When seeking power, they drag their heels, make
  comments under their breath, and sometimes try to
  show that the teacher can't make them do
  anything.
• When seeking revenge, they try to get back at the
  teacher and other students, by lying, subverting
  class activities, and maliciously disrupting the
  class.
• When seeking to display inadequacy, they withdraw
  from class activities and make no effort to
  learn.

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Dreikurs Principal Teachings

• Teachers should learn how to identify mistaken
  goals and deal with them.
• When teachers see evidence that students are
  pursuing mistaken goals, they should point out
  the fact by identifying the mistaken goal and
  discussing the faulty logic involved.
• They should do this in a friendly,
  non-threatening manner.

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Dreikurs Principal Teachings

• Teachers should learn how to identify mistaken
  goals and deal with them.
• When teachers see evidence that students are
  pursuing mistaken goals, they should point out
  the fact by identifying the mistaken goal and
  discussing the faulty logic involved.
• They should do this in a friendly,
  non-threatening manner.

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Dreikurs Principal Teachings

• Rules for governing class behavior should be
  formulated jointly by teacher and students.
• Tied to those rules should be the logical
  consequences of compliance or violation.
• It is the teacher's responsibility to see that
  stipulated consequences are invoked.
• Good behavior (following the rules) brings
  pleasant consequences such as enjoyment of
  learning and associating positively with others.

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Dreikurs Principal Teachings

• Misbehavior brings unpleasant consequences such
  as having to complete work at home or being
  excluded from normal class activities.
• Punishment should never be used in the
  classroom.
• Punishment is just a way for teachers to get back
  at students and show them who's boss, and is
  usually humiliating to the student.
• Punishment has many bad side effects and
  therefore should be supplanted with logical
  consequences agreed to by the class.

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Kounins Principal Teachings

• Teachers need to know what is going on in all
  parts of the classroom at all times.
• Kounin verified that teachers good in discipline
  displayed this trait, which he called withitness.
• Good lesson momentum helps keep students on
  track.
• Kounin used the term momentum to refer to
  teachers' starting lessons with dispatch, keeping
  lessons moving ahead, making transitions among
  activities efficiently, and bringing lessons to a
  satisfactory close.

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Kounins Principal Teachings

• Smoothness in lesson presentation helps keep
  students involved.
• The term smoothness refers to steady progression
  of lessons, without abrupt changes or disturbing
  incidents.
• Effective teachers have systems for gaining
  student attention and clarifying expectations.
  Kounin called this tactic group alerting.
• Teachers must learn how to correct one pupil's
  behavior in a way that changes the behavior of
  others. This is called the Ripple effect.

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Kounins Principal Teachings

• Effective teachers keep students attentive and
  actively involved.
• Such student accountability is maintained by
  regularly calling on students to respond,
  demonstrate, or explain.
• Teachers good in behavior management are able to
  attend to two or more events simultaneously.
• This skill, which Kounin called overlapping, is
  shown when teachers answer questions for students
  doing independent work while at the same time
  instructing a small group of students.

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Kounins Principal Teachings

• Effective teachers see to it that students are
  not given overexposure to a particular topic.
• Overexposure produces satiation, meaning students
  have had their fill of the topic as shown through
  boredom, resistance, and misbehavior.
• Boredom satiation can be avoided by providing
  variety to lessons, the classroom environment and
  by pupil awareness of progress.
• Effective teachers make instructional activities
  enjoyable and challenging. Kounin described how
  fun and challenge delay satiation.

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Jones Principal Teachings

• Approximately 95 percent of all student
  misbehavior consists of talking to neighbors and
  being out of one's seat, as well as generally
  goofing off, such as daydreaming and making
  noise.
• But it is this behavior that most often disrupts
  teaching and learning.
• On the average, teachers in typical classrooms
  lose approximately 50 percent of their teaching
  time because students are off-task or otherwise
  disrupting learning. This amounts to massive time
  wasting.

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Jones Principal Teachings

• Most teaching time that is otherwise lost can be
  recouped when teachers use Say, See, Do Teaching,
  provide efficient help to students, use effective
  body language, and use incentive systems.
• These are the hallmarks of good behavior
  management.
• Say, See, Do Teaching is an instructional method
  that calls for frequent student response to
  teacher input.
• It keeps students actively alert and involved in
  the lesson.

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Jones Principal Teachings

• Efficient arrangement of the classroom improves
  the likelihood of successful teaching and
  learning.
• This includes seating arrangements that permit
  the teacher to "work the crowd" as they supervise
  student work and provide help.
• Proper use of body language is one of the most
  effective discipline skills available to
  teachers.
• Body language includes eye contact, physical
  proximity, body carriage, facial expressions, and
  gestures.

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Jones Principal Teachings

• Teachers set limits on student behavior not so
  much through rules as through subtle
  interpersonal skills. These are the skills that
  convey that teachers mean business.
• Students will work hard and behave well when
  given incentives to do so.
• These incentives are teachers' promises that
  students will receive, in return for proper
  behavior, rewards in the form of favorite
  activities that can be learned by all members of
  the group for the enjoyment of all members of the
  group.

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Jones Principal Teachings

• To be effective, an incentive must be attractive
  to the entire group and be available equally to
  all.
• Incentives that are available only to certain
  members of the class will affect only the
  behavior of those few individuals and leave the
  class as a whole little changed.
• Students must learn to do their work without the
  teacher hovering over them.
• Jones calls students' reliance on teacher
  presence "helpless handraising."

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Jones Principal Teachings

• He devised a method of providing help very
  efficiently to students who call for teacher
  assistance during independent work. Jones says to
  be positive, be brief and be gone."
• The goal of discipline is for students to assume
  responsibility for their actions. All aspects of
  learning are improved when students do so.

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The Canters Principal Teachings

• Today's students have clear rights and needs that
  must be met if they are to be taught effectively.
  
• These students' rights and needs include a caring
  teacher who persistently works to foster the best
  interests of students.
• Teachers have rights and needs in the classroom
  as well. Teachers' rights include teaching in a
  classroom that is free from disruption, with
  support from parents and administrators as they
  work to help students.

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The Canters Principal Teachings

• The most effective teachers are those who remain
  in control of the class while always remembering
  that their main duty is to help students learn
  and behave responsibly.
• Teachers must continually model through their
  own behavior the kind of trust and respect for
  students that they want students to show toward
  others.
• A good discipline plan, built upon trust and
  respect, is necessary for helping.

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The Canters Principal Teachings

• Students limit their own counterproductive
  behavior. Such a discipline plan contains rules
  and consequences, and it must be fully understood
  and supported by students and their parents.
• Teachers should practice positive repetitions.
  Positive repetitions involve repeating directions
  as positive statements to students who are
  complying with class rules, for example, "Fred
  remembered to raise his hand. Good job."

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The Canters Principal Teachings

• Negative consequences are penalties teachers
  invoke when students violate class expectations.
• They are brought to bear only when all else
  fails. They must be something students dislike
  (staying in after class, being isolated from the
  group) but must never be physically or
  psychologically harmful.
• Positive consequences are rewards, usually words
  or facial expressions, that teachers offer when
  students comply with class expectations.
• The Canters consider positive consequences to be
  very powerful.

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The Canters Principal Teachings

• Today's teachers must both model and directly
  teach proper behavior. It is not enough for
  teachers simply to set limits and apply
  consequences. They must go well beyond that to
  actually teaching students how to behave
  responsibly in the classroom.
• Teachers can have success with a majority of
  students deemed difficult to manage.
• They can accomplish this by reaching out to those
  students, learning about their needs, interacting
  with them personally, and showing a constant
  willingness to help.

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Ginotts Principal Teachings

• Learning always takes place in the present tense,
  meaning teachers must not prejudge students or
  hold grudges.
• Discipline is little-by-little, step-by-step. The
  teacher's self-discipline is key. Model the
  behavior you want in students.
• Learning is always a personal matter to the
  student. Large classes often make teachers forget
  that each student-learner is an individual who
  must be treated as such.
• .

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Ginotts Principal Teachings

• Teachers should always endeavor to use congruent
  communication, which is communication that is
  harmonious with students' feelings about
  situations and themselves
• The cardinal principle of congruent communication
  is that it addresses situations. It never
  addresses students' character or personality.
• Teachers at their best, using congruent
  communication, do not preach or moralize, nor
  impose guilt or demand promises. Instead, they
  confer dignity on their students by treating them
  as social equals capable of making good
  decisions.

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Ginotts Principal Teachings

• Teachers at their worst label students, belittle
  them, and denigrate their character They usually
  do these things inadvertently.
• Effective teachers invite cooperation from their
  students by describing the situation and
  indicating what needs to be done. They do not
  dictate to students or boss them around, which
  provokes resistance.
• Teachers have a hidden asset upon which they
  should always call, namely, "How can I be most
  helpful to my students right now?"

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Ginotts Principal Teachings

• Teachers should feel free to express their anger,
  but in doing so should use I-messages rather than
  you-messages.
• Using an I-message, the teacher might say "I am
  very upset." Using a you-message, the teacher
  might say "You are being very rude."
• It is wise to use laconic language when
  responding to or redirecting student misbehavior.
  Laconic means short, concise, and brief, which
  describes the sort of responses Ginott advocates.

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Ginotts Principal Teachings

• Evaluative praise is worse than none at all and
  should never be used. An example of evaluative
  praise is "Good boy for raising your hand."
• Teachers should use appreciative praise when
  responding to effort or improvement. This is
  praise in which the teacher shows appreciation
  for what the student has done, without evaluating
  the student's character (e.g., "I can almost
  smell those pine trees in your drawing").

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Ginotts Principal Teachings

• Always respect students' privacy. Teachers
  should never pry when students do not wish to
  discuss personal matters, but should show they
  are available should students need to talk.
• Use sane messages when correcting misbehavior.
  Address what the student is doing, don't attack
  the student's character personal traits.
  Labeling disables.
• Use communication that is congruent with
  student's own feelings about the situation and
  themselves.

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Ginotts Principal Teachings

• Invite cooperation rather than demanding it.
  Teachers should express their feelings--anger--but
  in sane ways.
• "Sarcasm is hazardous. Praise can be dangerous
  praise the act, not the student and in a
  situation that will not turn peers against the
  pupil.
• Apologies are meaningless unless it is clear that
  the person intends to improve.
• Teachers are at their best when they help pupils
  develop their self-esteem and to trust their own
  experience.

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Linda Alberts Principal Teachings

• Students choose their behavior. How they behave
  is not outside their control. Virtually all can
  behave properly when they see the need to do so.
• Students need to feel that they belong in the
  classroom. This means they must perceive
  themselves to be important, worthwhile, and
  valued.
• When students misbehave, their goal is usually
  either to gain attention, gain power, exact
  revenge, or avoid failure. At times, misbehavior
  can also occur because of exuberance or simply
  not knowing the proper way to behave.

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Linda Alberts Principal Teachings

• Teachers can only influence student behavior
  they cannot directly control it. By knowing which
  goal students are seeking teachers can exert
  positive influence on behavior choices that
  students make.
• Teachers in general reflect three styles of
  classroom management permissive, autocratic, and
  democratic. Of the three, the democratic style
  best promotes good discipline. Albert refers to
  these three styles as the hands-off, hands-on,
  and hands-joined styles.

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Linda Alberts Principal Teachings

• The Three C's -- capable, connect, and contribute
  -- are essential in helping students feel a sense
  of belonging. When students feel capable, they
  are able to connect personally with peers and
  teachers and able to make contributions to the
  class and elsewhere. With the three C's in place,
  the incidence of misbehavior drops dramatically.
• Teachers should work cooperatively with students
  to develop a classroom code of conduct. The code
  of conduct stipulates the kind of behavior
  expected of everyone in the class.

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Linda Alberts Principal Teachings

• Teachers should also work cooperatively with
  students to develop a set of consequences to be
  invoked when the classroom code of conduct is
  transgressed. When students participate in
  developing consequences, they are more likely to
  accept them as fair and reasonable.
• When conflicts occur between teacher and
  students, the teacher should remain cool and
  relaxed. Teachers should adopt a businesslike
  attitude and use a calm yet firm tone of voice.

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Linda Alberts Principal Teachings

• Encouragement is the most powerful teaching tool
  available to teachers. Few things motivate good
  behavior as much as does teacher encouragement.
• Teachers should remember that in order to develop
  a good system of discipline, they require the
  cooperation of students and parents. Both should
  be valued as partners and their contributions
  brought meaningfully into cooperative discipline.

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B.F. Skinners Principal Teachings

• Even before Redl and Wattenberg published their
  suggestions for working with the group, a Harvard
  psychologist named Burrhus Frederic Skinner was
  making interesting findings about how our
  voluntary actions are affected by what happens to
  us immediately after we perform a given act.

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B.F. Skinners Principal Teachings

• Skinner is respected as perhaps the greatest
  behavioral psychologist of all time. He earned
  his doctorate in psychology at Harvard in 1931
  and from that time almost until his death in 1990
  published articles and books based on his
  findings and beliefs about human behavior.
• During all those years, Skinner never concerned
  himself with classroom discipline.
• However, his followers saw the applicability of
  his findings, especially
• in regard to encouraging students to behave
  acceptably in the classroom. Those followers,
  sometimes referred to as "Neo-Skinnerians,"
  devised and popularized the procedure of behavior
  modification which is used extensively in
  different realms of human learning

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B.F. Skinners Principal Teachings

• Behavior modification (not a term Skinner used)
  refers to the overall procedure of shaping
  student behavior intentionally through
  reinforcement. This procedure still comprises a
  major part of many teachers' discipline systems,.
  particularly at the primary grade level.
• Constant reinforcement, provided every time a
  student performs a desired act, helps new
  learnings become established. The teacher might
  praise Jonathan every time he raises his hand, or
  privately compliment Mary every time she turns in
  required homework.

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B.F. Skinners Principal Teachings

• Intermittent reinforcement, in which rewards are
  supplied only occasionally, is sufficient to
  maintain desired behavior once it has become
  established. After students have learned to come
  into the room and get immediately to work, the
  teacher will only occasionally need to express
  appreciation.
• Behaviors that are not reinforced soon disappear
  or, as Skinner said, become extinguished. If
  Roberto raises his hand in class but is never
  called on, he will sooner or later stop raising
  his hand.

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B.F. Skinners Principal Teachings

• Successive approximation refers to a
  behavior-shaping progression in which behavior
  comes closer and closer to a preset goal. This
  process is evident when skills are being built.
  Here students are rewarded regularly for
  improvement.
• Punishment often has negative effects in behavior
  modification and hence is not used in the
  classroom. Skinner believed punishment could not
  extinguish inappropriate behavior.

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B.F. Skinners Principal Teachings

• Although Skinner did not concern himself with
  classroom discipline per se, his discoveries
  concerning the shaping of desired behavior
  through reinforcement led directly to behavior
  modification, still used to speed and shape
  academic and social learning.
• Years ago many primary grade teachers used
  behavior modification as their entire discipline
  system, rewarding students who behaved properly
  and ignoring those who misbehaved.
• Very few teachers now use behavior modification
  as their discipline system,yet Skinner's
  principles of reinforcement are applied in
  classrooms everywhere.

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