JBTE/PSY 102 –Managing

Instruction and Classroom

Dynamics in the Primary
Classroom
Unit 4:
Managing Classrooms for Effective
Teaching and Learning
Topic: Classroom Management – An
Overview
 Theoretical and
Empirical Support
What will we
cover?
The Goals of
Classroom
Management
 REQUIRED READING

+ Arends – Chapter 5
+ Slavin – Chapter 11
+ Woolfolk – Chapter 12
 What is Classroom
Management to you ?

Write down all the words and/or phrases that you

would associate with Classroom Management?
 Time for Reflection
Think about teachers who were strong
disciplinarians and very strict.
+ What did they do regarding classroom
management?
+ How did you respond to this type of
teacher and classroom?
+ How did other students respond?
+ What were the advantages and
disadvantages of this type of
management?
Time for Reflection

Think about teachers who were very lax.

+ What did they do regarding classroom
management?
+ How did you respond to this type of
teacher and classroom?
+ How did other students respond?
+ What were the advantages and
disadvantages of this type of
management?
 Time for Reflection

Think about the type of classroom manager

you were/would like to be.
+ Will you be strict? Lax? Friendly?
+ What about your students? Do you want
them to behave because you say they
should?
+ Or have you thought about helping your
students develop self-discipline?
Perspectives on Classroom
Management

Behavioural Approach Child-Centered Approach

 Ideas on Classroom Management
+ The teacher’s biggest job is to develop a positive learning community
where all students are valued, respect one another, and are motivated to
work together.
+ Good classroom management requires teachers who can create
authentic relationships with their students and develop an “ethic of
care".
+ Classroom management is possibly the most important challenge facing
novice teachers.
+ Classroom management and instruction are highly interrelated.

See Arends pp. 178 & 179 (200 & 201)

 Ideas on Classroom Management

+ Each teaching model or strategy a teacher chooses to use places its own demands
on the management system and influences the behaviors of both teachers and
learners.
+ John Dewey, Johann Pestalozzi, Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers are critical of
processes aimed at controlling students and instead focus on the basic goodness of
children and youth.
+ They argue for treating children in schools humanely and respectfully and for
creating learning communities (Kohn, 2006) characterized by what Nel Noddings
(1992, 2001, 2005) has called an “ethic of care.” These settings assist student
development not only academically but also socially and emotionally.

See Arends pp. 179 (201)

Preventative Management
+ Good Planning
+ Effective Time Management
+ Strategic Space Organization
+ Engaging Instruction: student
motivation, facilitating open and
honest discourse
See Arrends pp. 179 (201)
Theories on Classroom Management

Ecological
Child-
Behavioural and Group
Centered
Processes
 Behavioural
Theory
Let's explore the major concepts!

This Photo by Unknown author is licensed under CC BY-SA-NC.

 Behavioural Theory
+ Behavioural theory emphasizes the centrality of external events in
directing behavior and the importance of positive and negative
reinforcers.
+ Teachers who apply behavioral principles to classroom management use
rewards and privileges to reinforce desired behavior and punishments to
discourage undesirable tendencies or actions.

See Arends pp. 180 (202)

 Behavioural Theory
+ This approach has emphasized how to control the behavior of
individual students as compared to considering the classroom group
and overall learning situation.
+ Behavioural theory focuses on psychological causes: insecurity, need
for attention, anxiety, and lack of self-discipline as well as on
sociological causes: parent overprotection, bad peer relationships, or
disadvantaged backgrounds.

See Arends pp. 180 (202)

 Behavioural Theory
+ Recommendations to teachers stemming from this tradition normally
emphasize ways to help individual students through counseling or
behavior modification and show less concern for managing the classroom
group.
+ Behavior modification programs, the use of token economies, and
assertive discipline (Canter, 2009; Canter & Canter, 1976, 2002; and
Walker, Shea, & Bauer, 2003) are formal programs that have been
developed based on behavioral theory and have been used widely in
classrooms in recent times.
See Arrends pp. 180 (202)
 Let's examine the major
Ecological and Group Processes concepts!
 Classroom Ecology and Group Processes

+ Classroom management researchers in this tradition study the way student

cooperation and involvement are achieved so that important learning
activities can be accomplished.
+ The major function of the teacher from this point of view is to plan and
orchestrate well-conceived group activities that flow smoothly.
+ Misbehavior of students is conceived as actions that disrupt this activity
flow.

See Arends pp. 180 & 181 (202 & 203)

 Jacob Kounin
+ The classic study in the classroom ecology
tradition was conducted in the late 1960s by
Jacob Kounin and his colleagues.
+ Kounin considered that maybe it was not the
way teachers disciplined their students that
was important but instead the way the
classroom as a group was managed that
made a difference.

See Arends pg. 181 (203) & 184 (206)

 Doyle and Carter

+ They have been interested in how specific academic tasks are connected to
student involvement and classroom management.
+ This work is informative to the topic of classroom management because
the researchers found that students had considerable influence over the
task demands of the classroom.

See Arends pg. 181 (203)

 Doyle and Carter​
+ The students influenced the teacher to do more and more of their
thinking.
+ Here is a direct quotation from a report of what the researchers observed:
"Some students became quite adamant in their demands. . . . On such
occasions, order began to break down and the normal smoothness and
momentum of the classes were reinstated only when the teacher provided
the prompts and resources the students were requesting. The teacher was
pushed, in other words, to choose between conditions for students’ self-
direction and preserving order in the classroom." (p. 146)

See Arends pg. 181 (203)

 Effective Teaching
+ Some classroom management researchers have been influenced by both
behavioral theory and the ecological orientation.
+ They pursued this approach because strong relationships had been found
between student engagement and student achievement.
+ This research, which has spread over thirty years, has been led by Edmund
Emmers, Carolyn Evertson, and several of their colleagues.

See Arends pg. 184 (206)

 Effective Teaching
Teacher Effective managers gave clear presentations and explanations,
effectiveness and their directions about note taking were explicit.
researchers
found strong
The more effective classroom managers had procedures that
relationships governed student talk, participation, and movement; turning in
between work; and what to do during downtime.
student on-
task behavior Laboratory and group activities in the effective managers’
and several classrooms ran smoothly and efficiently. Instructions were clear,
teacher and student misbehavior was handled quickly.
behaviors.
Effective managers had very clear work requirements for students
and monitored student progress carefully.

See Arends pg. 184 (206)

Child-Centered
Let's examine the key concepts.
 Child-Centered Traditions
+ The child-centered perspective on classroom management views
the chief source of the problem as irrelevant curricula and
overemphasis on stillness and conformity.
+ ". . . a premium is put on physical quietude, on silence, on rigid
uniformity of posture and movement; upon a machinelike
simulation of the attitudes of intelligent interest. The teachers’
business is to hold the pupils up to these requirements and to
punish the inevitable deviations which occur. (Dewey, cited in
Kohn, 1996, p. 7)

See Arends pg. 184 (206)

 Child-Centered Traditions
+ Misbehavior, according to Oakes and Lipton (2003), “follows from
instruction that attempts to coerce students, even if it is for their own and
society’s good” (p. 278), or, according to Kohn (1996), from situations
“where we ‘manage’ behavior and try to make students do what we want . .
. [rather than] . . . help them become morally sophisticated people who
think for themselves and care about others” (p. 62).
+ Curriculum should not be prescribed by teachers but instead should aim at
promoting students’ development and at meeting students’ social and
emotional as well as academic needs.

See Arends pg. 184 (206)

 Nel Noddings (1992) has written, “schools
should be committed to a great moral purpose: to
care for children so that they too will be prepared
to care” (p. 65).

Caring and developing democratic classrooms

Child-Centered become the alternative to preventative
management and behavioral control.
Traditions
See vignettes in Arrends pg. 186 (208) to see
this perspective in action.

See Arends pg. 184 (206)

 PAUSE! CHECK!
REFLECT!

Why do most people

How is classroom
consider classroom
management linked to
management the most
other aspects of
important challenge for
instruction?
novice teachers?

See Arends pg. 181 (203)

 PAUSE! CHECK!
REFLECT!
+ What are the major theories that have guided
classroom management research practices? What are
the advantages and disadvantages of each?
+ What specific teacher behaviors lead to the most
effective classroom management, according to
teacher effectiveness researchers?
+ What are the major features of classroom
management from the perspective of child-centered
theorists?

See Arends pg. 185 (207)

The Goals of Classroom
Management
You are being interviewed a job at Upper Heights Primary School – a new
school that is geared towards innovation. The chief interviewer asks you,
"What is the main goal of classroom management?" How would you
answer?
 The Goals of Classroom
Management
The aim of classroom
management is to
maintain a positive,
productive learning
environment.

• Access to learning
Classroom management • More time for learning
provides
• Self-management

See Woolfolk pg. 419

 Access to Learning
+ Each classroom has its own rules for participation.
+ To successfully participate in each activity, students should
understand the participation structure.
+ Some students seem to come to school less able to
participate than others. Why?

See Woolfolk pg. 419

Access to Learning

To reach the primary goal of good classroom

management you must make sure that everyone knows
how to participate in class activities.
• What are your rules and expectations?
• Are they understandable given students' cultural backgrounds and
home experiences?
• What unspoken rules or values may be operating?
• Are you clearly signaling appropriate ways to participate?

See Woolfolk pp. 419-420

 More Time for Learning

Simply making more time for

Many minutes each day are
One important goal learning will not
lost through interruptions,
of classroom management is automatically lead to
disruptions, late starts, and
to expand the allocated time. achievement; the time must
rough transitions.
be used effectively.

See Woolfolk pp. 420

 Time spent actively involved in specific
learning tasks is often referred to as engaged
time/time on task.

Engaged time does not guarantee learning.

More Time for When students are working with a high rate of
success, it is called academic learning time.
Learning
The second goal is to increase academic
learning time by keeping students actively
engaged in worthwhile, appropriate learning
activities.

See Woolfolk pp. 420-421

 More Time for Learning
+ Preventing Lost Time
+ Preventing Late Starts and
Early Finishes
+ Preventing Interruptions
+ Handling Routine Procedures
+ Minimizing Time Spend on
Discipline
+ Teaching Engaging Lessons
See Slavin pg. 330-336
+ Maintaining Momentum
+ Maintaining Smoothness of
Instruction
+ Managing Transitions
+ Maintaining Group Focus
during Lessons and Seatwork
+ With-it-ness
+ Overlapping
Can Time On-Task Be Too High?
A class that is rarely on-task is not a well-managed class.

It is possible to emphasize time on-task to the exclusion of all other

considerations.

An overemphasis on engaged time rather than on engaging instruction

can produce mock participation. (Bloome, Puro, & Theodoru, 1989).

See Slavin pg. 337

 Classroom Management in the
Student-Centered Classroom

+ Classroom management is more participatory in a student-centered

classroom, with students involved in setting the standards of behaviour.
+ The expected behaviour will be different from the traditionally organized
classroom.
+ Rules are still needed and must be consistently communicated to students
and consistently enforced.

See Slavin pg. 337-338

 Case Study
A visit was made to a fifth-grade class. The teacher was presenting an
interesting, well-organized lesson, and most of the students were paying
attention. However, one girl had a comic book she was secretly reading,
paying no attention to the lesson.
The veteran teacher was aware of everything going on in the class, and he
soon noticed that the girl was not paying attention. Without interrupting
his lesson in the slightest, he strolled sideways toward her desk, took the
comic book, closed it, and put it on her desk. This was done so smoothly
that few if any of the other students even seemed to notice it.
Given the perspectives featured today, how would you evaluate this
teacher's classroom management technique?
+ What was an "aha!" + What was a "huh?" moment for
moment for you today? you today?

BEFORE YOU GO...

What's Next?

Creating
Effective
Motivation
Learning
Environments