Classroom Management

This is Unit Eleven, on classroom management: warmth and control, three traditions of management, preventing problems, and responding to misbehavior. Unit Ten closed on weighing lecture against active learning. Unit Eleven turns to the classroom that makes any method possible. Carry one idea through this unit: judge every management move by what it actually does, to the behavior and to the relationship. At the final two entries, the unit shows discipline that backfires, and the difference between a consequence and a punishment. By the end you will be able to classify a teacher's style by warmth and control. To analyze a behavior by its ABCs and its function. To apply low-profile control from anticipation to reaction. To tell withitness from overlapping and from the ripple effect. And to explain the negative-reinforcement trap and the difference between consequences and punishment.

Four entries on why management matters: warmth and control, four styles, and where management time really goes.

Warmth and control.

EDP 1001 Warmth and Control

Classroom management combines warmth and control, and the two are independent dimensions rather than a trade-off: a teacher can be high or low on each, holding firm, consistent limits while greeting every student warmly at the door. Crossing the two dimensions gives four management styles.

Four management styles.

EDP 1002 Four Management Styles

Crossing warmth with control gives four styles. An authoritarian teacher is cold and highly controlling. An authoritative teacher is warm and highly controlling, making rules with students and praising consistently. A permissive teacher is warm with little control; a neglectful teacher is cold with little control. A teacher who posts rules on day one and enforces them without warmth is authoritarian; one who builds rules with the class and explains them is authoritative; a friendly teacher who lets deadlines slide is permissive. Authoritative and authoritarian differ in warmth, not control, and an over-tight reward system can stifle independence.

Why management is hard.

EDP 1003 Why Management Is Hard

Management is hard because many things happen at once, events are unpredictable, students perceive the same teacher action differently, and attendance is compulsory, so presence does not mean motivation; while helping one group, a teacher notices a dispute starting across the room.

Where management time goes.

EDP 1004 Minor Off-Task Behavior

Major incidents are rare; most management time goes to minor off-task behavior such as talking, daydreaming or passing notes, which Jones estimated consumes nearly half of some teachers' time. A whispered conversation, repeated across a room, costs more than one rare fight, so quick, low-key responses matter most.

Eight entries on the three traditions of classroom management: humanistic communication, applied behavior analysis, and prevention.

Ginott's congruent communication.

EDP 1005 Ginott's Congruent Communication

In the humanistic tradition, Haim Ginott's congruent communication uses sane messages that describe the situation rather than label the student, accept feelings, praise sparingly, invite cooperation and use I-messages for anger, as in I see paint on the floor; let's get paper towels, not you're so messy.

Glasser's choice theory.

EDP 1006 Glasser's Choice Theory

William Glasser's choice theory builds a classroom students want to be in, meeting needs for belonging, power and freedom, with class-made rules, lead rather than boss management, private conferences and no excuses; a student who disrupts is removed briefly, with the choice to return when ready.

The ABCs of behavior.

EDP 1007 The ABCs of Behavior

Applied behavior analysis examines the antecedent, the behavior and the consequence, and requires behavior to be observable, precisely defined and measured at baseline and afterward: being disrespectful does not count as behavior. The tradition descends from Thorndike's law of effect: behavior followed by satisfying consequences is repeated.

An ABC analysis.

EDP 1008 An ABC Analysis

An ABC analysis records what comes before a behavior, the behavior, and what follows, and asks what the consequence does for the student. Two functions are common. Attention: the misbehavior brings a response, even criticism, which reinforces it. Escape: the misbehavior removes the student from a disliked task, which negatively reinforces it. Whenever long division begins, a student tears his worksheet and is sent to the hallway; the function is escape, so being sent out rewards it. The teacher breaks the task into short steps, keeps the student in the room and reinforces each step. The function, not the behavior's appearance, decides the remedy.

Replacement behaviors, and extinction.

EDP 1009 Replacement Behaviors and Extinction

Behavior plans define the replacement behavior positively, by the dead person's rule: if a dead person could do it, it is not a behavior, so stay quiet fails and raise your hand and wait passes. Then they withdraw the reinforcer for misbehavior; extinction of attention works only if no escape rewards it.

Punishment as a last resort.

EDP 1010 Punishment as a Last Resort

Punishment is a last resort: time-out only when attention maintains the behavior, never when escape does; loss of privileges; restitution, repairing the damage; and positive practice, repeatedly practicing the correct behavior, as a student who runs in the hall walks it correctly several times, not writing essays about the wrong one.

The prevention tradition.

EDP 1011 The Prevention Tradition

The prevention tradition holds that effective managers are distinguished by what they do before misbehavior: in a study of twenty-seven third-grade teachers, effective managers taught rules and routines methodically in the first three weeks, monitored closely and applied consequences consistently, while less effective ones issued threats without follow-through.

Rules, routines and engaged time.

EDP 1012 Rules, Routines and Engaged Time

An integrated approach arranges the behavioral setting, keeps rules few, enforceable and general, teaches routines like content, and protects engaged time, since engaged time, not allocated time, relates to achievement: fifty minutes may be allocated to math with only thirty spent working. Routines are defined, taught, practiced and reinforced.

Seven entries on preventing problems: low-profile control, culture, space, rules, pacing, withitness, and parents.

Low-profile control.

EDP 1013 Low-Profile Control

Low-profile control handles surface behaviors in three moves. Anticipation spots trouble before it starts, from signs such as restlessness late in a period, and adjusts the activity. Deflection redirects a beginning behavior, nonverbally first, with a look or a step closer. Reaction responds in rising order: acknowledge a nearby student who is on task, warn, then apply a consequence. Late on a Friday, a teacher switches restless students to a standing activity; when a student drums a pencil, she stands nearby; when it resumes, she thanks a neighbor, warns quietly, and only then gives a consequence. Start with the least intrusive move that works.

Culturally responsive management.

EDP 1014 Culturally Responsive Management

Culturally responsive management recognizes that proximity, eye contact, warnings and room arrangement mean different things across cultures, so a teacher's usual move may be misread; a student who looks down when corrected may be showing respect, not defiance. A management plan should respect cultural differences as one of its criteria.

Arranging space and seating.

EDP 1015 Arranging Space and Seating

Arranging space means visible sight lines, an open center and sensible placement of displays and computers, and seating in rows, roundtables, horseshoes or pods should match the activity, rows for listening and tables for peer work. In traditional rows, interaction concentrates in the front and center, so change the arrangement with the activity.

Procedures and rules.

EDP 1016 Procedures and Rules

Procedures are conventions for recurring tasks, with more than one acceptable way, like how papers are handed in; rules are standards of personal responsibility, few, positively stated and general, like respect others' property. The case for student input is stronger for rules than for procedures.

Pacing, structure and transitions.

EDP 1017 Pacing, Structure and Transitions

Good pacing sets tasks of moderate difficulty, beginning easy and familiar; moderate structure directs students without removing their thinking; and transitions go smoothly when materials are ready and students manage themselves, as supplies set out in advance turn a five-minute transition into one minute.

Withitness and overlapping.

EDP 1018 Withitness and Overlapping

Jacob Kounin found that effective managers show withitness, awareness of everything happening in the room, and overlapping, handling two things at once, as when a teacher conferring with one student signals another across the room to get back to work. Experienced teachers show more of both.

Communicating with parents.

EDP 1019 Communicating with Parents

Teachers communicate the importance of learning through timely feedback, accurate records and portfolios, and contact with parents by newsletters, calls and conferences, including student-led ones. A parent who misses conferences may face work schedules, child care, transport or language barriers, and is not necessarily indifferent.

Five entries on responding to misbehavior, ending with two payoffs: discipline that backfires, and consequences versus punishment.

Kounin's ripple effect.

EDP 1020 The Ripple Effect

Kounin's ripple effect describes how a teacher's correction, called a desist, aimed at one student affects the other students who watch it, as a firm, calm correction settles nearby students too. The ripple effect is not misbehavior spreading from student to student; that is contagion, a separate idea.

Ignoring, cues and consequences.

EDP 1021 Ignoring, Cues and Consequences

Responses rise from ignoring minor, unnoticed behavior, which relies on extinction, to nonverbal cues, to consequences: natural ones that follow on their own, like feeling cold after forgetting a coat, and logical ones the teacher arranges to fit the behavior, like cleaning up a spill. Consequences work when proportionate and understood.

Problem ownership and I-messages.

EDP 1022 Problem Ownership and I-Messages

Thomas Gordon's Teacher Effectiveness Training begins with problem ownership, whoever is bothered by a behavior owns the problem, and uses active listening, assertive I-messages rather than you-messages, and negotiation, as in when talking interrupts my explanation, I lose my place, instead of you're always rude. Assertive is neither passive nor hostile.

The first payoff: the negative-reinforcement trap.

EDP 1023 The Negative-Reinforcement Trap

Here is the first payoff. Negative reinforcement strengthens a behavior by removing something unpleasant, and that is how well-meant discipline backfires. When a student misbehaves to escape a disliked task and the teacher removes the student from the task, the removal is exactly what the student wanted, so the misbehavior grows. Time-out is negative punishment, removal from something desirable, and it works only when the activity left behind is desirable, as when classmates' attention maintains the behavior. Two students disrupt a reading lesson and each goes to a quiet corner: for the one seeking laughter, the corner removes the reinforcer and disruptions fall; for the one escaping embarrassing oral reading, the corner delivers the escape and disruptions rise. For that student, the teacher keeps the student in the lesson with a practiced passage and praise. Judge a consequence by its effect, not its intention.

The second payoff: consequences, not punishment.

EDP 1024 Consequences, Not Punishment

Here is the second payoff. Consequences and punishment can look alike, but consequences look to the future, proportionate, understood, and aimed at repairing harm and the relationship, while punishment looks to the past, assigning blame and relying on shame or isolation. When a student scribbles on a classmate's poster, a punitive response announces the offense and removes recess for a week; a consequence-based response takes the student aside, uses an I-message, and has the student help repair or remake the poster, then return to the group. Consequences have limits: some behaviors have none that fits, and bullying for power is not self-limiting, so the teacher intervenes directly. A logical consequence that shames has become punishment. Ask one question: will this response help the student act differently next time?

Look at what you can now do. You can classify a teacher's style by warmth and control: authoritarian, authoritative, permissive or neglectful. You can analyze a behavior by its antecedent, behavior and consequence, and choose the remedy by its function. You can apply low-profile control, from anticipation through deflection to reaction. You can tell withitness, awareness of the whole room, from overlapping and from the ripple effect on onlookers. And you can explain the negative-reinforcement trap, and why consequences, unlike punishments, look to repair. Unit Twelve turns to assessment and evaluation.