Week 9: Classroom and Behaviour Management

Classroom and Behaviour Management 26/11/2013

Our Lesson Plan this week: Lesson Plan


'It's frustrating for learners who want to learn to be in an environment behaviour and management issues'

Managing the Learning Environment and Behaviour

We had a group activity, the whole class divided in groups of 4 and used a few minutes to discuss and write down on Post-It notes topics relevant to classroom management. This was our groups list:

Then all the Post-It notes were collected and redistributed randomly to generate another activity, where our groups were looking at others Post-It notes and making notes on how to manage a particular area of classroom behaviour or aspect of the learning environment. The particular topic our group had to address was 'Mobile Phones'.
We made bullet point notes on classroom management methods/options:

This process had us thinking deep and hard. True too, there was also a rather abrupt realisation of just how serious and important this topic is to success in teaching. We had a discussion on Behaviour Theories: (a) Behaviourist  (b) Humanist -- see image

We then put together a list of factors, we as teachers are responsible for managing. It's not completely comprehensive, as we basically came to the conclusion that as teachers we are pretty much responsible for everything.

Classroom Management cont..

Geoff Petty. (2004). Classroom Management. In: Nelson Thornes Teaching Today. 3rd ed. Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes. 101.

Difficulties in the classroom usually start before the lesson has even started, they are inherent in the lesson plan. Therefore, your lesson plan needs to create effective lessons. Above, 'Petty' refers to this as the bridge from chaos to order:

• Effective Lessons
• Good Organisation
• Good Rapport (teacher/student relationships)
• Effective Discipline (almost impossible unless the first three conditions are satisfied)

'Experienced teachers don't deal with problems, they prevent them from occurring'. If the lesson plan is effective then the lessons will be also. 'Petty' mentions that the first of the above points must not be overlooked, the rest will follow, though given the repetition for emphasis 'Petty' uses with the Noun 'Confidence', suggest to me we need a good measure of it. It stands to reason then, that a thoroughly prepared lesson plan will engender confidence.

Bill Rogers

Top Ten Ideas from Bill Rogers

Part of our lesson plan included a image of a large white square, or you could say a piece of white A4 paper, with a tiny black dot in the middle. Eg:

The black dot here represents the negative. The white area represents the positive. The purpose of this is to illustrate what we focus on and to keep things in perspective.

We also viewed a couple of Videos by Bill:

The Mobile Phone:

Settling the Class:

One aspect mentioned by Bill Rogers and also addressed by Geoff Petty is: Proximity. Petty again drills in to us the need for confidence and then illustrates two extremes of scale:
Geoff Petty. (2004). Classroom Management. In: Nelson Thornes Teaching Today. 3rd ed. Cheltenham: Stanley Thornes. 97.

Formal authority is sustained by non-verbal methods. Standing up straight, shoulders back, giving orders with a confident tone, even if you are nervous or flustered don't let it show. Authority is conveyed principally with body language. The effectiveness of your authority is increased, not by shouting or anger, but by:

• Proximity
• Eye Contact
• Posing Questions

We also discussed ABC or Antecedent - Behaviour - Consequences. It is suggested by behaviour psychologist that inappropriate behaviour is triggered by a situation they call the antecedent. Behaviour can be changed by changing either the antecedent or the consequences, or both.