Classroom discipline strategies and implementation

Classroom Discipline

Cook-Sather, a. (2009). "I'm not afraid to listen: Prospective teachers learning from students."

Theory Into Practice, 48(3), 176-183.

Cook-Sather's article describes a teacher education program she conducts at Bryn Mawr College and the results of a survey of teachers who went through the program. The program is called the Teaching and Learning Together (TLT). Through TLT, secondary education students at the college have substantial interaction with high school students from area high school, including frequent email correspondence and meetings facilitated by a trained teacher. The interactions focus on the content of the curriculum that is geared towards giving pre-service teachers direct access to the points-of-view of high school students. The pre-service teachers are learning by listening to the classroom experiences of these students. Cook-Sather's literature review shows that her project is one of few attempted in the United States but that the use of students as teacher educators is popular elsewhere in the developed world.

The survey asked what, if any, impact or influence has the TLT program had on the work experience as teachers in urban high schools. The respondents said that program has had a positive effect on their teaching experience, helping them to become better listeners, to take the perspectives of their students seriously, and to making their classrooms more engaging learning spaces. This enhanced engagement in learning lessens the need for authoritativeness in the classroom and helps make the student-teacher relationship more collaborative. Such classrooms can have fewer discipline problems.

The author provides advice for how teachers can build programs like hers in their schools and colleges. The report on the survey lacks important details like sample size and rate of response. The author does not discuss the limits of her research.

Erdogan, M., Kursun, E., Sisman, G., Saltan, F., Gok, A., & Yildiz, I. (2010). A qualitative study on classroom management and classroom discipline problems, reasons, and solutions: A case of information technologies class. Educational Sciences: Theory and Practice, 10(2), 881-891.

This article looks at classroom management and discipline issues that confront information technology (IT) teachers in Turkey with the purpose of understanding the kinds of discipline and classroom management problems encountered and the underlying causes for those problems. Solutions to these problems are discussed as well. The authors are a professor of educational sciences and four Ph.D. candidates at various Turkish universities.

The researchers interviewed 14 IT teachers, 14 school principals, 6 vice-principals, and 17 family members of children taking the IT course. In this qualitative study, the researchers used the content analysis method to find categories and themes in the responses the subjects gave. Findings revealed the following problems: lack of motivation, rule breaking, lack of infrastructure, poor time management, classroom environment, and lack of classroom interaction. Underlying causes for these discipline problems pointed out by the interview subjects included the nature of the course, crowded classrooms, lack of software, lack of rules, the students' home lives and their parents attitudes, poor student attitudes, and the teachers' inability to manage their classrooms efficiently. To address these problems, the subject suggested boosting teacher education in the subject area, reforming the IT course curriculum, using software that prevented students from using the computers inappropriately, more classroom activities that foster student motivation, better IT classroom management, punishment for misbehavior, ignoring misbehavior, creating classroom rules, investigating the reasons behind discipline problems, involving the parents, and getting help from other teachers in the school.

The authors point out differences in responses between groups of subjects. For example, parents and school administrators felt the teachers were not managing their classrooms well, while teachers felt that parents were shaping the students' attitudes by having poor attitudes in regards to technology and the IT course. Concerning solutions to the discipline and classroom management problems, the authors basically restate those offered by the subjects with some brief elaboration.

This article is of topical interest because it does address the issues of discipline and classroom management in an IT-focused classroom at a time when technology is impacting education with ever-increasing force. The authors do not suggest topics of further research nor discuss the limitations of their study. The sample is small and was gathered selectively based on convenience of access.

Freiberg, H., & Lamb, S.M. (2009). Dimensions of person-centered classroom management.

Theory Into Practice, 48(2), 99-105.

Freiberg and Lamb advocate a person-centered teaching method based on the client-centered psychotherapeutic approach of Carl Rogers over a more behaviorist, Skinnerian method. They assert that the behaviorist model hasn't improved student discipline and doesn't foster the kind of self-directed learning that helps develop higher intellectual capacities in students.

This article reviews the literature on person-centered classroom management and finds that it produces positive classroom environments and higher student achievement by emphasizing four key concepts: social and emotional connection between teachers and students through an empathetic approach to relating to each other; a connectedness to the school by expanding that empathic approach to include administrators and the greater school community; a safe and trusting climate in which students feel encouraged and supported to take intellectual risks; and a shared responsibility for discipline that puts students in leadership positions and gives them a stake in maintaining order in the classroom.

Freiberg and Lamb, both education faculty members at the University of Houston, point to the success of schools that employ the Consistency Management and Cooperative Discipline program (CMCD), which is based on the person-centered approach. The CMCD program prompts teachers to foster a fair and consistent classroom environment where goals, objectives, and expectations are always accessible to all students and that actively engages students in the learning process. Discipline is shared among all members of the classroom. Students take on leadership roles by applying for and being interviewed for classroom jobs.

This article endorses an approach to classroom management and discipline similar to that in Susan Pass's research. It sounds very idealistic, but the authors do cite several articles to indicate real achievement for those schools using the person-centered approach to education. A weakness in this article is that it does not examine any cases in which this approach has been tried and has failed, nor does it take up the positives of the behaviorist approach. Moreover, the authors don't provide concrete suggestions for how to implement this approach.

Gable, R.A., Hester, P.H., Rock, M.L., & Hughes, K.G. (2009). Back to basics: Rules, praise, ignoring, and reprimands revisited. Intervention in School and Clinic, 44(4), 195-205.

In this article, the authors review the literature concerning classroom management and discipline to see what changes if any have developed over the course of the past 5 decades. They focus on classroom rules, giving praise for good behavior, ignoring minor student provocations, and issuing reprimands. Overall, the review shows that these approaches to classroom management have persisted over time with a few important changes.

The review shows that teachers today have relatively fewer classroom rules and that the current trend is for rules that do more than simply regulate student behavior but also serve to nurture broader behavioral expectations. Research shows that these expectations are more effective if they are taught systemically to the students.

More recent studies suggest that praise is more effective when the teacher is in a position very near the student and when the student has many opportunities to receive praise. Concerning reprimands, the more reactive orientation toward student discipline of the past is being replaced by a precorrective, interventionist concept that aims at removing or neutralizing the antecedents to misbehavior and classroom management problems.

This article, written by three education faculty members and a doctoral candidate at Old Dominion University, provides a broad yet concise review of the research on these four classroom management techniques. It shows the range of approaches used in the classroom and can help a teacher generate ideas for dealing with discipline problems.

Harrell, I., and Hollins, T. (2009). Working with disruptive students. Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges, 14(1), 69-75.

The authors, respectively a coordinator and an associate vice-president of student affairs at Sargeant Reynolds Community College, discuss dealing with disruptive behaviors in college classrooms. They advocate working to prevent misbehavior first. Methods for preventing disruptive behavior include clearly explaining what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable behavior on the first day of class and documenting these expectations on the course syllabus, employing an interactive and engaging teaching style, and modeling proper classroom behavior.

When misbehavior occurs, the authors advise faculty to address it promptly in a calm, firm manner and to focus clearly and articulately on the disruptive behavior. If needed, the faculty member should discuss the matter with the student and compose a written agreement that details the behavior problem, what the student is going to do about it, and the consequences of breaking the contract. In extreme cases of disruptive behavior, such as aggressive behavior or coming to class under the influence of drugs or alcohol, the faculty member should engage campus agencies such as public safety or student health services. The authors provide a list of tips for dealing with crisis situations.

The article provides useful classroom discipline ideas in a clear, concise way. The information is specific to college classrooms but the general ideas are similar to those presented in articles about elementary and secondary classroom management issues and techniques.

Hulac, D., and Benson, N. (2010). The use of group contingencies for preventing and managing disruptive behaviors. Intervention in School and Clinic, 45(4), 257-262.

Hulac and Benson, professors of social psychology at the University of South Dakota, explain how the behaviorism-based classroom management technique of group contingencies can be used to address discipline problems. They point to literature that finds group contingencies to be highly effective in dealing with misbehavior when they are used correctly. Also, teachers find group contingencies easier to employ than multiple contingencies for different students.

Group contingencies rely on interdependent student behavior. All students get rewarded when all students meet the criteria for the reinforcement. Group contingencies can be used to enlist the group to help manage the misbehavior of one or a small group of students. As with most behaviorist interventions, randomization of the components of the group contingency strengthens its effect.

The authors illustrate these concepts with a case study to which they refer from time to time. In one instance, the teacher uses a group contingency to gain the class's support in helping to stop a student who disrupts class by uttering racial slurs. While the disruptive student is out of the classroom receiving social skills counseling, the teacher teaches the students how to ignore that student's provocations. Each time they do it successfully, the entire class earns a certain amount of extra computer use time, and when they don't, the teacher reminds them that they missed an opportunity to earn more computer time and encourages them to succeed next time. The aim is to extinguish the utterance of insults. Everybody wins when the class ignores the disruptive student's insults, and the student receives positive pressure to stop the misbehavior.

Hulac and Benson go on to suggest combining group contingencies with other methods of classroom management, including engaging students in brainstorm ways that they can demonstrate good behavior and soliciting student input concerning rewards and reinforcements they value.

Written as a guide for practitioners of group contingency, the article does discuss the limits of the practice, including the kinds of situations that do not warrant its use.

Morrissey, K.L., Bohanon, H., & Fenning, P. (2010). Positive behavior support: Teaching and acknowledging expected behaviors in an urban high school. TEACHING Exceptional

Children, 42(5), 26-35.

This article, written by education faculty members at Loyola University in Chicago -- one of whom is a special education teacher in a public school, reports the longitudinal research findings regarding the implementation of a school-wide positive behavior support (PBS) approach to school discipline in a large urban high school. The PBS system involves a three-tiered approach to teaching and acknowledging positive behaviors. The first tier is school-wide, successfully reaching 80% of students. Tiers 2 and 3 are geared to deal with more resistant behavior problems with more intensive, small group and individualized intervention. Morrissey, Bohanon, and Fenning focus on a Tier 1 level system over 3 years.

A Tier 1 PBS program starts with assembling a team that uses school disciplinary data and interviews with staff and students to establish a set of 3 to 5 expected positive behaviors in different school locations such as the hallways and the cafeteria. The team creates a lesson plan to teach the expected behaviors to the student body that includes a presentation and role playing practice, and teachers and staff are taught how to acknowledge positive behaviors with detailed praise and giving students tickets with which they can get desirable items as rewards for good behavior. In this study, the school implemented the PBS as a pilot program during summer school with a small population of students, then for the next 3 years during the normal academic school year.

The researchers found that discipline problems were significantly lower over all years of implementation when compared to the baseline from before the program. Tier 2 and 3 interventions decreased as well. They also found that teaching the expected behaviors in a school-wide assembly at the beginning of the year had a positive impact on behavior more quickly than doing it in small groups over the first few weeks of the school year. The researchers acknowledge that without a control group, no causality can be determined.

This study is useful in both the detailed descriptions of its theoretical approach, the implementation strategy, and the results. It is odd, however, that the authors discuss special needs children in their opening paragraphs but do not actually include them in the report of their research.

Pass, S. (2007). A classroom discipline plan that teaches democracy. Issues in Teacher

Education, 16(1), 75-89.

Pass's research investigates a model for classroom management that encourages teachers to include students in the management of the classroom through a democratic process, and it presents findings on the impact of this model on college seniors in a social studies education program as they ready themselves for student teaching assignments in high school settings. The impetus for the model is based on the goals of the National Council for the Social Studies, the third of which states that social studies students should learn how to be a good participant in democracy.

The model provides the student teachers with a process for creating classroom management contracts in collaboration with their students. Their students get to approve the contracts by voting. The first contract is about teacher-student and student-student interactions. The second concerns the consequences when a student violates the first contract. The third contract is designed to deal with violations of the second and provides an opportunity to help the offending student understand how he or she went wrong and how the student can improve on those points. The student creates the third contract outside of classroom time, and it constitutes a student-teacher agreement aimed at remedying the problematic behavior.

In Pass's own fifteen years classroom teaching experience, she found that this model led to a decrease in student misbehaviors and less time dealing with discipline problems. This positive experience encourage her to pursuit this as a teaching model at the college level in order to inculcate democratic classroom management skills in the next generation of teachers.

The college students were divided into two groups. Group One did not receive instruction using the contract creation method whereas Group Two did. Both groups were pre- and post-tested using a strong and valid instrument Pass created and tested. Students in the second group showed higher scores on the post-test vis-a-vis Group One participants regarding student motivation and interest in learning how to teach. Group Two students indicated a higher sense of preparedness for their student teaching assignments.

Pass acknowledged limitations in her study, such as the selected sample, the small size of the sample, and the fact that the study took place in a college setting. Nonetheless, this study is interesting because it addresses a concrete model designed to enhance classroom management by involving students pro-actively in establishing an understanding of discipline issues in the classroom. The model gives students a voice in creating the classroom rules and engages them in rectifying violations of those rules.

Susan Pass is an assistant professor of social studies education at Clemson University.

Ryan, J.B., Peterson, R., Tetreault, G., & Hagen, E. (2007). Reducing seclusion timeout and restraint procedures with at-risk youth. Journal of At-Risk Issues, 13(1), 7-12.

This article reports on the impact of intensive crisis intervention training for staff at a Minnesota school for at-risk youths on how often staff uses seclusion (timeout) and restraint techniques for addressing classroom misbehavior. The study collected data on the number and nature of discipline incident reports filed by staff over a two-year people. The first year the staff had not had the crisis intervention training, but they had been trained before the beginning of the second academic year. Incidences of both types of discipline measures fell during the second year, with seclusion/timeout falling 39.4% and restraint being used 17.6% less. These decreases represented an extra 245 staff hours having been used for school activities other than dealing with misbehavior. The study also surveyed staff members regarding the use of seclusion and restraint after undergoing the intensive training.