Shirley SATITI

EDUC 3007 Managing Learning Environments

Preventative Planning

Introduction:

Preventative plan aims to avoid unproductive behaviours by establishing a learning

environment that promotes academic engagement (Sullivan, Johnson, Owens & Conway
2014). For effective preventative approach, it is important for teachers to understand the
relationship between classroom management and instructions, and its influences on
students’ behavioural, emotional and personal investment in participating a lesson
(McDonald 2013).

In this essay, I will be developing a preventative plan with strategies addressing

disengaged behaviours that are minor and frequently experienced by most teachers. These
strategies are reflected on the principles of Managing Learning Environment; specifically,
the importance of establishing high expectations on students’ engagement, relationships
that is beneficial for their learning development and teaching practices that respects their
dignity (University of South Australia 2019). However, student engagement is complex as it
does not exist in isolation and easily influenced by physical environments, the curriculum
and resources, and teachers’ pedagogies (Sullivan et al. 2014), which correlates with
Williams’ (2013, p.11) 4S Framework: setting, systems, self and students.

These preventative strategies will be implemented into my Reception class of 15

students aged between 5-to-6 years old. As majority of these students have previously
enrolled into the school’s early learning centre, I have the privilege to have worked with
them prior to the start of the term. Therefore, it is vital for me to introduce these strategies
in the first days of school to ensure students’ needs and interests are cared for within the
setting, systems and my teaching practices are meaningful.

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Strategy #1: Clear expectations

Classroom cultures are complex and dynamic. It often involves teachers organising
and ensuring the structures are corresponded to the school systems, own teaching
practices, resources and the needs and interests of each individual students (Williams 2013).
From personal experience, teachers are pressured to provide activities that are entertaining,
yet it needs to be meaningful, challenging and achievable for students. Moreover, there are
demands for accountability reporting of individual and group progress through assessing
while mainly working in isolation (Williams 2013). With these demands which teachers have
to endure, student misbehaviour during lessons may resulted teachers in feeling more
stress, frustrations and burnout, as well as disrupting other students’ learning. Cothran,
Hodges Kulinna and Garrahy (2003) had identified that students will exhibit productive
behaviour when expectations and consequences are clearly established, as early as the first
days of schooling when students are exploring the boundaries of acceptable behaviours.

Expectations that are clear with consequences and consistently used are crucial to
student engagement and achievements in learning. It provides students the chance to
develop a ‘we expect success’ attitude, as well as understanding the teacher’s beliefs and
philosophical understanding of learning (McDonald 2013, p.135). However, it is important
that students are able to distinguish that these expectations of their behaviour in school
does not signify certain behaviours as better or worse, but to recognise these expected
behaviours as necessary for effective engagement within the school community (Jones &
Jones 2010).

For these expectations to be effective, I should not be assuming that students will
understand and accept the set of clear guidelines when taught. As highlighted by Jones and
Jones (2010), it is most effective when behaviour expectations are taught, practiced and
retaught whenever student fail to follow. In other words, these set of rules and procedures
require consistency and time for students to understand the classroom expectations. In any
case whereby student demonstrate persistence towards their misbehaviour in classroom,
consequences should be implemented instead of merely being threatened to be use upon

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them as it illustrates to the students of the teacher’s inability to administer the classroom
(Cothran et al. 2003).

Before establishing the rules and procedures, I would have class discussion on the
expectations of behaviours and its importance. By involving students in deciding and
negotiating the excepted behaviours, I am allowing them to be take responsibility of their
own behaviours and hold each other accountable for achieving a positive and safe learning
environment (Cothran et al. 2003). Also, it allows them to develop standards which all
members will have to agree to follow and understand that these expectations are not to
prohibit certain behaviours but, as resources to direct them in accomplishing activities
(Jones & Jones 2010). However, as pointed out by Jones and Jones (2010), I would need to
be aware of the definitions and expectations of appropriate behaviours and consider other
students’ cultural backgrounds when discussion as our own perspectives could cause certain
conflicts and disagreements. Despite the cultural differences which individual student brings
into the classroom, relationships with students will develop in the process and I will be able
to utilise it to better understand their needs, interests and strengths for future learning
opportunities.

Strategy #2: Active listening

Effective communication is fundamental in developing healthy relationships with

students and promoting acceptable productive behaviours in classroom. Through
communication, teachers are able to understand their students and create an environment
whereby students feel supported, valued and part of the community while their needs are
being respected and considered (Lyons, Ford & Slee 2014). In classrooms, communications
are often a two-way process which involves sending and receiving messages simultaneously.
However, teachers often focused on the transmission of information and little attention is
given towards the way they communicate and opportunities for listening to students. As a
result, students may translate teachers’ actions as authoritative and disinterested in caring
or getting to know them which may lead to an increase in disengaged behaviours with
learning.

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Active listening is one of the various strategies recommended by Lyons et al. (2014)
to support effective communication and avoid miscommunication in classroom. This
approach is a listening strategy which is most effective in dealing with students’ behavioural
problems and for negotiating solutions (Lyons et al. 2014). It is important for me and other
teachers using this strategy for managing classroom, to understand the differences between
hearing and listening as it aids in the effectiveness of strategy. Hearing, as defined by Lyons
et al. (2014, p.52) is passive as it involves sounds being received and translated while
listening is purposeful which involves the use of attention system to translate, interpret and
evaluate the received message.

It is challenging for teachers to develop the skills of active listening, as often they
revert back into an authoritative and responsible role when communicating with students.
As I would like to create an environment that has the potential for strong positive
relationship building and prevent any misunderstandings with my reception year students, I
would need to be aware of the way I communication with them, especially of my non-verbal
responses. Non-verbal responses have a significant impact on communication as it is
communicating without any spoken words and is less consciously controlled. Features that
often associates with non-verbal includes facial expressions, eye contact, paralinguistics,
choices of words, body positioning, gesture, proximity and touching (Lyons et al. 2014, p.).
Drawing from personal experiences, I have noticed that students tend to identify facial
expressions when communicating with teachers and convey them into emotional states,
attitudes and values which could affect their behavioural performances and chances for
misunderstandings to occur.

A way which I could have an effective use of this strategy is to give full attention to
the speaker and paraphrase what the speaker has said before answering (Lyons et al. 2014).
Through this approach, the speaker will be provided with the opportunity to clarify any
statements that could have been misunderstood and not to feed any information that could
disrupt their understanding. This strategy is not easy to implement but with practice and
time in giving more accurate paraphrasing, the student will feel more supported.

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Strategy #3: Responding to off-task behaviour

Off-task behaviours are externalising behaviours that often occur in classrooms when
students are disengaged from the activities, unable to understand the task or unable to
obtain any assistance when needed (Sullivan et al. 2014). These behaviours are often minor
but are a concern as it disrupts other students’ abilities to learn and teacher’s ability to
teach. With the lack of training and skill in responding to such behaviour, teachers would
take on the role of authoritarian to control the situation and expresses their frustrations
towards the student’s behaviour, which could lead to the student responding with either
fear, anxiety, anger or rebellion (Jones & Jones 2010). Ultimately, it decreases opportunities
for positive teacher-child relationships and the student are less likely to participate in social
groups within the school environment (Baum & Olenchak 2002, cited in Meany-Walen,
Bullis, Kottman & Taylor 2015, p.295). It has been recommended that minor disruptions in
an effective classroom management should be dealt with before it become major and out of
control. However, teachers are advised against referring students to the school’s counsellor
or administrator as a way to deal with minor disruptions as it could result in students
challenging teacher just to get out of classroom and possibly desire to be send home to
avoid responsibility.

To manage minor disruptions caused by disengaged student during lessons, Jones

and Jones (2010) had recommended various approaches and ideas that teachers can use
when responding. However, I will be focusing and applying three approaches that I thought
were most relevant to my teaching beliefs. These approaches are remaining calm, ignoring
the behaviour and making contact.

Remaining calm is the best responding approach to off-task behaviours, especially

when clear instructions are given beforehand and the student still choose to continue with
the behaviour. As any other human in such situation and with personal experience, I
understand the difficulty to remain calm when feelings of frustration, annoyance and even
anger are experienced. However, it is important to stay professional and not give any
opportunity for students to blame us on our inappropriate behaviour (Jones & Jones 2010).

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Instead, they should be encouraged to recognise and take responsibility for their own
misbehaviour.

Ignoring is most effective for minor behaviours and through this approach, it
suggests to students that their disengaged behaviour will not be recognised. Instead, they
will only be acknowledged with praise for appropriate behaviour when they decide to
refocus themselves with working on the activity or joining in the class discussion (Jones &
Jones 2010). If ignoring minor behaviours does not seem to work, making contact with the
student can be used with subtle actions such as with a glance, by moving close to the
student or by asking student for an on-task response (Jones & Jones 2010). It is important to
remember that when asking student for an on-task response, the student should be able to
answer the question which could be delivered by asking a new question or paraphrasing the
statement for an opinion, otherwise the student may be embarrassed. Another approach, as
explained by Rogers (2012) is to instead of criticising the student’s off-task behaviour, focus
on their skill or the task they were engaged in and offer assistance when needed.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, these preventative strategies of clear expectations, active listening

and responding to off-task behaviours reflected upon the core beliefs of my teaching
practices. I believe that these strategies correlates to the principles of Managing Learning
Environments as it highlights the importance of establishing high expectations, human
relationships and respecting students’ dignity which are essential. With these strategies, I
believe that students’ learning engagement could be increased, and disengaged behaviours
could be easily redirected and managed. However, I would like to acknowledge that these
strategies may be unsuccessful, such as the formation of classroom rules may be too
restrictive or not focused positively and will be further explored and explained in planning
for intervention essay.

Word count: 1783

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References:

Cothran, DJ, Hodges Kulinna, P & Garrahy, DA 2003, ‘This is kind of giving a secret away…:
students’ perspectives on effective class management’, Teaching and Teacher Education,
vol. 19, no.4, pp. 435-444.

Jones, VF & Jones, LS 2010, ‘Chapter 8: Responding to violations of rules and procedures’,
Comprehensive classroom management: Creating communities of support and solving
problems, 9th edn, Upper Saddle, Merrill, NJ.

Lyons, G, Ford, M & Slee, J 2014, Chapter 3: Relationships and communication, Classroom
management: Creating positive learning environments, 4th edn, Cengage Learning, South
Melbourne, Vic.

McDonald, T 2013, Classroom management: Engaging students in learning, Oxford Univesity

Press, South Melbourne, Vic.

Meany-Walen, K, Bullis, Q, Kottman, T & Taylor, DD 2015, ‘Group Adlerian play therapy with
children with off-task behaviors’, Journal for Specialists in Group Work, vol. 40, no. 3, pp.
294-313.

Rogers, B 2012, Dealing with distractions confidently, online video, September 18, viewed 20
September 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doNJS7ACp1c

Sullivan, AM, Johnson, B, Owens, LD & Conway, RNF 2014, ‘Punish them or Engage Them?
Teachers’ Views of Unproductive Student Behaviours in the Classroom’, Australian Journal
of Teacher Education, vol. 39, no. 6, pp. 43-56.

University of South Australia 2019, Course outline: Managing Learning Environments,

University of South Australia, Adelaide, South Australia.

Williams, D 2013, Background basics, University of South Australia, Adelaide.