Kounin model of discipline pdf

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9Managing the Classroom

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Learning Objectives

After studying this chapter you will be able to:

ሁ Explain the relationship between classroom management and discipline. ሁ Name the principal characteristics of Roger’s humanistic model and Marland’s caring model. ሁ Define and analyze teacher “with-it-ness.” ሁ Evaluate behavioristic models of classroom management, including Skinner’s behavior modification and Canter’s assertive discipline.

ሁ Evaluate strategies for preventive classroom management.

If people are good only because they fear punishment and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.

—Albert Einstein

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Pretest

Determine if the following statements are true or false.

1. Classroom management issues can contribute to teacher burnout. (T/F) 2. Humanistic models of classroom management are teacher-centered. (T/F) 3. Teachers are typically involved in making classroom transitions happen. (T/F) 4. An example of token reinforcement is using a star chart to monitor appropriate behavior

in the classroom. (T/F) 5. The assertive discipline model involves administrators and teachers when needed. (T/F)

Answers can be found at the end of the chapter.

Introduction It may not surprise you to know that one of the principal reasons for teachers’ unhappiness and premature retirement is discipline problems. This chapter, one of the more practical in this text, outlines a variety of strategies and principles that can be effective in preventing and correcting disruptive behavior. The single most important point is that here, as in medicine, it is better to prevent than to have to cure later.

One day when I was having trouble concentrating in school, I amused myself by sharpening my pencil as pointed as it would get without breaking the lead. Then I used it to try to make a hole in my rubber eraser, pounding it against the eraser with my ruler. My dad, our teacher, didn’t appreciate the distraction and told me to stop—which I did for a while, but then I forgot. Maybe his day wasn’t much better than mine because it seems like there weren’t all that many warn- ings before he called me to the front of the class, grabbed the strap from the top right-hand corner of his desk, and whacked me once on each hand.

That was my last major punishment that year other than the time I had to write “I will not squirt ink on Louise” 150 times. It later occurred to me that this might be a nice title for a popular song.

9.1 Classroom Management and Discipline It would be misleading to say that I was a discipline problem in my father’s school. Prob- lems imply something requiring a solution. In my dad’s school, misbehaviors weren’t so much problems as simply occasions that almost automatically called for discipline.

Misbehaviors tended not to persist.

Today’s schools are vastly different from my father’s school. Still, when researchers look at the preoccupations of beginning teachers, they typically find that the single most overriding concern has to do with classroom management and control (de Jong, van Tartwijk, Wubbels, Veldman, & Verloop, 2013). Significantly, many beginning teachers don’t feel adequately pre- pared to handle the realities of day-to-day classroom management. That is one of the reasons

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why, without proper assistance and support, beginning teachers are far more likely than experienced teachers to suffer the stress and teacher burnout discussed in Chapter 1. Con- cerns and issues relating to classroom management are one of the most important causes of teacher attrition (Pearman & Lefever-Davis, 2012).

Negotiated Order Theory Teachers have always been very concerned with discipline and classroom management. Classroom management is a general term referring to all of the actions that teachers take to organize classrooms and manage instruction in order to use time effectively and happily, and to maximize learning. Discipline is a more specific term referring to actions that teachers take to prevent or reduce the incidence of misbehavior, or to respond to behavior problems once they occur.

Classroom management and discipline, note Hogelucht and Geist (1997), can be usefully viewed as an example of the application of negotiated order theory. That is, teachers and students essentially negotiate and communicate to each other the boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable behavior and the consequences of not adhering to rules. When teachers voice dissatisfaction with events in the classroom, they are in effect voicing disapproval with current classroom order. Similarly, student misbehavior is often a call for renegotiation of the rules of classroom order.

The challenge for beginning teachers is to find the easiest and most effective ways of negotiat- ing and maintaining classroom order—the most effective ways of managing classrooms.

What is the best approach to classroom management? Unfortunately, there is no simple answer—no recipe that, when carried out, will always prevent or eliminate behavior prob- lems and also lead to a high level of learning and, ultimately, to an admirable level of self- discipline in all learners. But there is strong evidence that the most effective teachers use three different types of strategies: First are a variety of classroom management strategies designed to maintain a positive classroom climate, thus avoiding behavior problems; sec- ond are specific strategies that are useful for short-term management of behavior problems; third are problem-solving, conflict-resolution strategies geared toward achieving the long- term goal of self-discipline.

Much of the remainder of this chapter is a systematic summary and evaluation of classroom management strategies that fit within these three general groupings. First, to put the subject of this chapter into perspective, we look at the environment in which teaching, learning, and classroom management take place.

Today’s Classroom Just as the “average” student is an abstraction that does not exist in the real world, there is no “average” class. Every class is unique. Each has its special blend of personalities that interact with one another, and with the personality and style of the teacher, to create its own dynamic ecology—that is, its own ever-changing environment. Some classrooms are filled with obedi- ent and compliant children; others are riddled with aggression and violence. Nearly half of all public schools in the United States report that they have various kinds of security guards or sworn law enforcement officers in their schools at least once a week (43% in 2013–2014). A vast majority of these schools have written plans governing procedures to be followed in the

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Section 9.1 Classroom Management and Discipline

case of a natural disaster or a shooting (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016). Sur- vey data indicates that in 2015, nearly one of every four high school males reported bringing a weapon—in the form of knives, guns, or clubs—to school (High school students carrying weapons, 2016)! Thousands of students have been suspended or expelled; thousands more are in institutions for juvenile offenders. And this in spite of the fact that there appears to have been a decline in school violence since 2000 (Mayer, 2008; see Figure 9.1). And in spite of the fact, too, that the Gun-Free School Zone Act of 1990 prohibits carrying guns on school property. A later law, the Gun-Free Schools Act (1994), also encourages zero tolerance for guns on school property and mandates that students who bring guns to school will be expelled for a period of at least one year.

Figure 9.1: Weapons in high school ሁ Percentage of students in grades 9 to 12 who admitted to carrying a weapon (knife, gun, club, or

similar) at least one day during the last 30 days. Percentages have declined since 1993 but, at roughly 1 in every 20 students, are still shockingly high.

Source: U. S. National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved October 25, 2016, from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d15/tables/dt15_231.40.asp

0

5

10

15

20

25

1995 1999 2001 2003 2005

Anywhere

On school property

2007 2009 2011 20131993 Year

P er

ce n

ta g

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Section 9.1 Classroom Management and Discipline

Organizing Models of Classroom Management Experts often have very different notions about the causes of misbehavior and about the most effective and appropriate sorts of intervention to use. As a result, the advice they give teach- ers about how to manage their classrooms and discipline their students varies enormously— which is not always very reassuring, especially for beginning teachers.

At one extreme are management models that recommend the least amount of intervention possible—for example, humanistic approaches such as open schools. At the other extreme are the more restrictive behavior modification models that make extensive use of systematic rewards and punishments. And in between are various models that try to balance permissive- ness with restrictiveness and offer a variety of suggestions about how this might be accom- plished. Proponents of these different approaches are unanimous in their belief that preven- tion is more desirable than correction.

The remainder of this chapter describes several of the most representative classroom man- agement and discipline models, loosely classified in terms of their principal orientation and the degree of permissiveness and restrictiveness that they advocate. Table 9.1 summarizes these and also previews much of what follows.

Table 9.1: Models of classroom management

Instructional philosophy

Theoretical underpinning

Beliefs about causes of misbehavior

Principal recommenda- tions Advocates

Most permissive– least directive

Highly learner- centered (constructivist)

Humanistic Poor self-concept

Minimal inter- vention; teacher should provide supportive environment, encourage self- development; moral climate of classroom is important

• Carl Rogers

• Michael Marland

• Abraham Maslow

Relatively learner- centered (high student participation but with teacher direction)

Democratic Inappropriate goals; faulty under- standing of consequences

Teacher should be democratic rather than autocratic; set reasonable limits; use tech- niques of reason- ing and logic to identify goals

• Jacob Kounin

Least permissive– most directive

Highly teacher- centered; direct instruction

Behavioristic Misbehaviors are learned; failure to learn appropriate alternative behaviors

Behavior modifi- cation techniques such as reinforce- ment, modeling, punishment; assertive control by teachers; set- ting of clear rules and consequences

• Burrhus F. Skinner

• Lee Canter

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Section 9.2 Humanistic Models of Classroom Management

9.2 Humanistic Models of Classroom Management Humanistic models of classroom management reflect a strong emphasis on the unique- ness and dignity of every individual student. These are highly learner- rather than teacher- centered. They recommend active student participation, the development of a supportive environment, a strong emphasis on self-development, and a minimal amount of classroom intervention.

Carl Rogers: Freedom to Learn The clear goal of humanistic teachers, claims Carl Rogers (Rogers & Freiberg, 1994), is to develop self-discipline in students. Broadly defined, self-discipline is “knowledge about one- self and the actions needed to grow and develop as a person” (p. 221). That, says Rogers, is the goal of most teachers, but not all take the right path.

And what is the right path? Simply put, it is among the most nondirective of classroom man- agement models. Rogers, like Maslow, believed that all students have a basic desire to grow, to develop, to become. Ideally, the role of parents and teachers is to provide the sort of sup- portive environment that facilitates and fosters growth—an environment that accepts chil- dren unconditionally, values them for who they are, and fosters their growth. In this model, the teacher is a facilitator rather than a director, and students are active and fundamentally important participants in the teaching-learning process. A scenario based on Rogers’ descrip- tion of such a classroom is summarized in the case “So Where’s the Teacher?”

C A S E S F R O M T H E C L A S S R O O M : S O W H E R E ’ S T H E T E A C H E R ?

The Situation: A day in Ms. Wilcox’s classroom

Early one morning, Ms. Wilcox, history teacher, phones in to say she’s sick and won’t be able to come to school. The principal’s wife answers the phone, but forgets to pass on the message.

In her class, Ms. Wilcox has set up a program entitled Consistency Management. This pro- gram gives students responsibility for the conditions they have decided are necessary for the classroom to work for them. These conditions are expressed in a series of jobs for which different students volunteer. The jobs rotate to different students every three weeks.

Now that Ms. Wilcox is sick, different students in each class simply go ahead and assume their normal responsibilities. Some serve as student facilitators, essentially teaching les- sons, presenting projects, leading discussion groups, sending in attendance slips, and doing other routine and not-so-routine things.

During the final period of the day, someone in the office needs to have Ms. Wilcox sign a form. But they can’t find her anywhere. So self-disciplined are her students that her absence has gone absolutely unnoticed all day.

Source: Rogers, C. R., & Freiberg, H. J. (1994). Freedom to learn (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Merrill.

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The Rogerian school is clearly a student-centered school. In this school, the role of the teacher is nondirective or, to use Rogers’ term, facilitative, and students are self-motivated and require a minimum of direction. Common instructional techniques include inquiry approaches, group projects, and self-assessment (Kuwamura, 2014). At the other extreme are teacher-centered schools. In such schools, teachers are highly directive, and students are controlled through external rewards and punishments. Common instructional techniques in teacher-centered schools include lecturing, questioning, drill and repetition, and teacher demonstrations.

Between these two extremes, according to Rogers and Freiberg (1994), are schools in which the teacher’s role is somewhere between facilitative and directive. Common instructional techniques in these schools include cooperative learning approaches and guided discovery. Figure 9.2 summarizes these distinctions.

Figure 9.2: Teacher-centered versus student-centered discipline and learning

ሁ The teacher’s role in classroom management and instruction reflects the extent to which the school and the teacher’s fundamental orientations are mainly teacher- or student-centered.

Source: Adapted from Rogers, C. R., & Freiberg, H. J. Freedom to learn (3rd ed.), 1994. New York: Merrill.

Highly directive

Teacher controls through external rewards and punishments

Lecturing

Assigning drill and practice

Requiring memorizing

Questioning

Telling/Showing

Discussion

Teaching learning- thinking strategies

Working in groups

Guided discovery

Enquiry

Role playing

Somewhat directive, somewhat facilitative

Cooperation between teacher and learners in determining aspects of class rules and consequences

Nondirective

Teacher encourages student autonomy and self-discipline

TEACHER-CENTERED

Teacher’s role Instructional technique

STUDENT-CENTERED

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Michael Marland: Caring for Children Rogers is not highly prescriptive with respect to the specifics of what teachers should and should not do to manage their classrooms. Michael Marland (1975), also clearly humanistic, presents more practical classroom management strategies.

Caring for Children Most important, says Marland, is to truly care for children. More than that, teachers must let children know that they are cared for—for example, by learning their names and getting to know as much as possible about each one.

Setting Rules Classroom management and discipline would be much simpler if we could just give teachers a clear and simple list of rules (prescriptions typically relating to what behavior is not per- mitted) and routines (customary ways of doing things) that should govern all students in all classrooms—complete with prescribed consequences for violation of, or adherence to, these rules and routines.

But it’s not quite so simple. Rules for student conduct are not and should not be fixed and absolute, says Marland. Instead, they must be relative to the teacher, to the situation, and to students. As a result, teachers don’t normally give students a list of rules. Instead, students tend to learn most rules indirectly, often when infractions occur. Many rules are never made explicit but are simply implied by the teacher’s interventions.

In contrast, many routines are taught explicitly and directly. Particularly in the elementary grades, such routines are indispensable to the smooth operation of the class and govern the activities of both teachers and students. Routines specify where books and supplies are to be kept, how questions are to be asked and answered, how games are to be played, where read- ing circles are to be placed, and dozens of other details of classroom activity.

Like rules, routines need to be established early in the school year. As Doyle (1986; 2006) observes, the most successful classroom managers are those who, in a sense, hover over activities at the beginning of the year, guiding and directing students until procedures have become habitual and the routines have been learned and accepted by all students.

Giving Legitimate Praise Praise, claims Marland (1975), is one of the most powerful of the teacher’s tools. Teachers need to arrange situations so that they can make frequent but legitimate use of praise. How- ever, they must be careful to observe two simple guidelines regarding praise and criticism.

1. Praise, given its positive effect on self-esteem and self-concept, should be public. On occasion, it should be communicated to parents and other interested adults as well.

2. In contrast, also because of its effects on self-esteem and self-concept, criticism should be given privately.

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Marland also recommends that both praise and criticism should be specific rather than gen- eral. Students should not be admonished in general terms such as “behave yourself” or “be good.” Instead, they should be directed to engage in a specific behavior and given a reason for that behavior.

Using Humor The effectiveness of humor is often overlooked by teachers who do not consider themselves naturally funny or entertaining. And teacher training programs have not gone out of their way to encourage prospective teachers to learn how to make others laugh or, perhaps most impor- tant, how to laugh at themselves. Potentially explosive confrontations can often be avoided by turning aside an implied student challenge with a skillful and humorous parry. In fact, some- times just a smile is enough.

Humor in the classroom can do far more than simply help prevent or resolve management problems. One of its important benefits, suggest Barney and Christenson (2013), is that it is a powerful means of winning and holding student attention and interest. Also, humor can pro- vide cues that help learners recall material. And, not least important, the use of humor helps create a positive classroom environment. As Terrell (2015) explains, humor can go a long way toward making school fun. And if school isn’t fun, why would a child want to go?

Terrell (2015) suggests a number of different ways to use humor in the classroom. For exam- ple, lessons might incorporate humorous anecdotes and examples; teachers can sometimes use entertaining characters in the form of silly puppets when teaching younger children. Sim- ilarly, high school teachers can work humor into their quizzes and assignments, as well as into their lessons.

Shaping the Learning Environment True to his humanistic orientation, Marland (1975) suggests that a personalized classroom climate is most conducive to the avoidance of management problems and to a high degree of student involvement and learning. For example, there is something impersonal and cold about the traditional, dominating position of the teacher’s desk at the front and center of the class. Of course, certain definite advantages are inherent in this traditional placement; there must be a focal point for students’ attention, and it is considerably easier for students to look to the front to see their teacher than it is for them to look to the rear.

Seating arrangements will, of course, be influenced by the main activities in the class, by the space available for the number of students, by physical constraints within the room, and by principles of good instruction. Students might also be involved in working out seating arrangements. (Figures 9.3 and 9.4 show several possible seating arrangements.)

The case entitled “Dragonville” is one example of a personally meaningful classroom environ- ment, which also involves the use of reinforcement principles for classroom management and learning.

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Section 9.2 Humanistic Models of Classroom Management

Figure 9.3: Traditional 1950s classroom arrangement ሁ Note the early form of exclusion, the proximity control, and the control enforcer.

proximity control

control enforcer

exclusion

windows

bookshelves

stove

Entrance

boys’ cloakroom girls’ cloakroom

water pail

blackboard

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Section 9.2 Humanistic Models of Classroom Management

Figure 9.4: Two contemporary classroom arrangements ሁ Important factors in modern classroom arrangements include instructional and management

considerations, comfort, attractiveness, and student wishes.

whiteboard shelves and storage

teacher’s desk

bookshelves

table

computersprintercomputers

storage

computers printer

teacher’s desk

bookshelves shelves and storage

whiteboard

bulletin board

chairs and table

moveable chalkboard

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Section 9.3 Democratic Models of Classroom Management

9.3 Democratic Models of Classroom Management Like humanistic approaches to classroom management, democratic models respect the indi- viduality and the rights of learners and emphasize the importance of their voices. Students are thus given opportunities to participate in important classroom management decisions. As a result, democratic models are relatively learner-centered. At the same time, however, the models typically advocate a greater degree of teacher direction than is true of humanistic models. Teachers are expected to set reasonable limits for student conduct, to use reason and logic to identify rules and goals, and to determine appropriate consequences for infractions of rules.

Jacob Kounin: Teacher With-it-ness and Desists Kounin (1970) argues that what successful teachers do to prevent misbehavior is probably more important than whatever they might do to handle misbehavior once it has occurred. Fol- lowing a detailed analysis of teachers’ behavior in actual classrooms, he describes a handful of specific behaviors that appear to be closely related to successful classroom management, and he identifies several teacher behaviors that are more likely to lead to student misbehaviors.

With-it-ness The most successful teachers, says Kounin (1970), are characterized by a higher degree of with-it-ness than less successful teachers: They are more aware of what is going on in their classrooms, who is responsible for infractions of rules, and when intervention is necessary. Being “with-it,” as McDaniel, Jackson, Gaudet, and Shim (2009) note, may be more difficult in today’s electronic classroom than it was in a simpler world. In addition to competing with computers, tablets, and smart phones for student attention, teachers now have the challenge of being aware of what students are doing in their in-class interactions with these devices.

C A S E S F R O M T H E C L A S S R O O M : D R A G O N V I L L E The Situation: Mrs. Fitzsimmons’ third-grade class

Early in the year Mrs. Fitzsimmons, with the help of her students, designed a “city” in which all students could actively take part. The students populated it with their favorite toy characters and named it Dragonville.

Every two weeks, students elect a mayor who is given privileges such as opening the “city gate” so students can come into the classroom. Using large cardboard boxes, students have set up stores, restaurants, offices, and a zoo in Dragonville. Roles rotate for each location, many of which sell items or charge admission. The currency in Dragonville is silver-painted bottle caps with numbers; merchandise in the store is donated by parents and brought from home. When students behave well all day and lessons are completed, they are given time to transact in their village where a wide variety of learning takes place. Dragonville gives Mrs. Fitzsimmons an opportunity to reward good behavior—of which there is a great deal. Misbehavior, given peer pressure to pay attention and “be good,” has almost disap- peared. Dragonville has become as effective a management tool as a learning tool.

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An important part of being with-it, explains Kounin (1970), involves the successful use of desists (teachers instructing learners to stop engaging in an off-task behavior). Teachers who are most with-it are those whose “desists” are on target and on time (neither too early nor too late). Teachers who are less with-it tend to instruct the wrong students to desist, or they tend to deliver their desist requests either after an off-task behavior has been going on for some time or too far ahead of its occurrence.

Effective desists share several other important characteristics, says Kounin. These include:

1. Clearly provide enough information for the student to understand specifically what is required. (For example, the desist, “Quit that!” is not nearly as clear as “Edward, stop writing on the window.”)

2. Suggest an alternative, on-task behavior rather than simply requesting cessation of the off-task behavior. (For example, the teacher continues, “Please return to your seat, Edward.”)

3. Praise on-task behavior while ignoring concurrent off-task activities. (For example, “Edward, could you write those words in your notebook as neatly as you did yester- day? You have such a nice notebook.”)

4. Provide descriptions of desirable behaviors or of relevant classroom rules. (“Hey, Edward, the caretaker gets very upset when someone writes on the windows because he has to clean them.”)

5. Provide timely desists (they occur before the misbehavior spreads or intensifies). 6. Provide desists that are on target (they are directed toward the principal wrongdoer).

The Ripple Effect Highly effective teachers also seem to be more aware of what Kounin calls the ripple effect— the tendency of the effects of a teacher’s behavior to spread to other students to whom the behavior is not directed. For example, a teacher’s desists directed toward Robert (“Stop eat- ing your pencil, Robert”) might ripple over and work on Luke causing him to immediately stop doing whatever he was doing.

Overlapping Successful teachers, says Kounin, are able to deal with several matters occurring at one time—a situation termed overlapping. Overlapping occurs in two different kinds of situa- tions: when a desist is required in the course of a lesson or when something intrudes on the flow of the lesson. Both situations are illustrated in the case entitled “In the Counting House.” The bathroom request is a mild intrusion but one that would have been disruptive had Kightly interrupted himself to say, “Yes, okay, you can go to the bathroom, Sam.” And the interception of the Evelyn West note is a nondisruptive desist—again, a situation that would have been clearly disruptive had Kightly stopped in mid-sentence and said, “Evelyn West! Would you like to read that note out loud to the class?”

The guiding principle when dealing with overlapping, notes Kounin (1970), is that the ongo- ing flow of classroom activities should be interrupted as little as possible. Often, however, as Maroni, Gnisci, and Pontecorvo (2008) report after observing 23 lessons in 12 different classes, overlaps do interrupt the ongoing activity. It’s quite common for an overlap to be followed by a change in speaker, especially in the lower grades where children’s turn-taking

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skills are not as highly developed as they will be later. These authors noted a marked improve- ment in turn-taking strategies between grades 2 and 4, and a consequent reduction in the extent to which overlaps break the flow of ongoing classroom activities.

C A S E S F R O M T H E C L A S S R O O M : I N T H E C O U N T I N G H O U S E

The Place: Walnut Creek Elementary

The Setting: Dennis Kightly’s sixth-grade class

The Situation: Mr. Kightly is reading a passage from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol

“. . . At length the hour of shutting up the counting-house arrived. With an ill-will Scrooge dismounted from his stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant clerk in the Tank, who instantly snuffed his candle out, and put on his hat.

“ ‘You’ll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?’ said Scrooge. . . .”

While reading, the very with-it Mr. Kightly notices that Sam Taylor, who today has a touch of the galloping something, has raised his hand tentatively in the beginning of the signal that means, “Sorry but I gotta go quick.” At the same time, he sees that Evelyn West has just completed a note and is reaching to pass it to her cousin, Mary West.

“ ‘If quite convenient, sir . . .’ ”

Mr. Kightly continues, at the same time nodding almost imperceptibly to Sam, who immedi- ately lurches from his desk and streaks out the door.

“ ‘It’s not convenient,’ said Scrooge, ‘and it’s not fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown . . .’ ”

By now Mr. Kightly has reached Evelyn’s desk. He intercepts the message in mid-air, returns to his desk, and drops it in the wastebasket without missing a beat.

“ ‘. . . for it, you’d think yourself ill-used . . .’ ”

Reading from Dickens, C. (1843/1986). A Christmas Carol. Toronto: Bantam Books.

Smoothness and Momentum Successful teachers keep the pace of classroom activity flowing smoothly. This means that the teacher must be able to deal with overlapping and also that transitions between classroom activities should occur smoothly. Kounin reports that a normal school day contains an aver- age of more than 33 major changes in learning activities (not including nonacademic transi- tions such as going to recess or lunch). These include transitions from one subject to another and transitions from one major activity to another within lessons (say, from listening to read- ing, from reading to writing, from individual work to group activity).

One of the causes of student restlessness, inattention, and misbehavior, explains Kounin (1970), are jerky transitions—transitions that are disruptive. He describes several major causes of lesson slowdown or interruption, or jerky transitions. These are summarized in Table 9.2.

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Typically, a transition requires directions from the teacher, or, at the very least, a signal that there is about to be a change in activities. But, as Fudge and associates (2008) point out, many students, especially in the early grades, fail to follow transition directions. The teacher’s reac- tion might be to wait for these students to comply, to ignore them and go on to the next activ- ity, or to reprimand or punish them.

The use of something like the color wheel system (Skinner & Skinner, 2007), especially in elementary grades, can be useful in eliminating jerky transitions. This system uses a colored wheel (shown in Figure 9.5) to establish a simple classroom management rule corresponding to each color. For example, students might be taught that the color green means free time— periods when students can leave their seats and socialize (within clearly understood and accepted boundaries); the color yellow relates to instructional activities—times during which learners are expected to attend to ongoing activities and to raise their hands before speaking; and the color red signals a transition. Students are taught to pay particular attention to the

Table 9.2: Types and examples of jerky classroom transitions

Jerky transition label Explanation Example

Stimulus-boundedness The teacher’s attention is interrupted by an extraneous stimulus.

Mr. Kightly stops his reading when he sees Evelyn West writing her note. “That reminds me,” he says, “I want each of you to write a note to your parents about . . .”

Thrusts The teacher interrupts students’ activ- ities without prior signal and without consideration for their readiness.

“Make sure you put your names on your papers,” says Mr. Kightly while the students are in the process of finishing their tests.

Dangles The teacher interrupts an ongoing activity and then returns to it again.

“Hey, put your pencils down for a min- ute, I want to read you this bulletin from the office. You can finish your tests later.”

Truncations The teacher does not return to the original activity after being interrupted.

“You can finish the tests after recess. I’m going to read you some more of A Christmas Carol first.”

Flip-flops The teacher makes a transition from one activity to a second and then flip- flops back to the first activity.

“A Christmas Carol was shorter than I thought. Okay, you can finish your tests now.”

Overdwelling The teacher spends far more time than necessary on some aspect of a lesson or perhaps with some aspect of a student’s behavior (or, more often, misbehavior), causing lesson slowdown.

“Well, we haven’t finished the Christ- mas unit like we were supposed to, so we’ll continue in January.”

Fragmentation The teacher breaks down an activity (or a group of students) in such a way that individuals are required to wait unnecessarily, resulting in a lesson slowdown.

“I want you to take your turns, only one student at a time at the white- board, the rest of you wait. Now it’s your turn, Bobby.”

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teacher whenever red is shown on the wheel because they must now listen to the directions that will transition them to the next activity. As a result, the color red often means that stu- dents must put away the material they have been using and do whatever needs to be done to prepare for the next activity.

Figure 9.5: The color wheel management system ሁ A simple color wheel such as the one below might be used in the color wheel management system.

Each of the three colors—two are hidden and one is visible—has a distinct meaning: Yellow = stay at your seat; ongoing instructional activity; green = you may leave your seat, relax, read, talk quietly with a friend; and red = pay attention; we are about to transition to another activity.

Maintaining Focus The most important factor for determining classroom order is not the frequency or strength of teachers’ interventions as much as the nature of ongoing classroom activity.

There are a large variety of classroom activities. These include seat work, student presen- tations, small-group activities, discussions, recitations, demonstrations, lectures, giving instructions, tutoring, and so on. In elementary school, an activity typically lasts between 10 and 20 minutes; in the higher grades, activities often last somewhat longer. As we saw, between activities are transitions, also sometimes considered a type of activity. Disruptions and misbehaviors are most likely to occur during seat work, during student presentations, and during transitions.

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Kounin (1970) describes three ways successful teachers attempt to maintain students’ focus on ongoing activities:

1. Develop ways of making each student accountable—usually by having each individ- ual in the class demonstrate a product, competence, or understanding. Other ways of making students accountable are to require that they answer questions in unison or to ask that they engage in a meaningful activity (like taking notes or making specific observations) while another student is making a presentation.

2. Use group-alerting cues, which are signals designed to maintain attention or alert- ness. Asking questions at random and keeping children in suspense about who will be called on next are common group-alerting cues. Interspersing questions that require a single individual to answer with questions that require a group answer is another.

3. Alter the format of classroom activities to maintain focus and prevent boredom. Lesson formats that require only one student to perform at a time (as with reading, for example) often lead to inattentiveness on the part of other students. One lesson format to counteract this requires other students to perform a related task while one student is reading (for example, answer a question, think of a question, listen for an answer).

It bears repeating that the basic message of Kounin’s classroom management model is that what teachers do to prevent misbehavior is far more important than what they might do when misbehavior occurs. Kounin’s emphasis is on the ecology of the classroom—that is, on the social climate among students and the relationships between learners and teacher.

9.4 Behavioristic Models of Classroom Management Among the main strengths of democratic models of classroom management is their humanistic- like respect of students’ rights, reflected in part by their attempt to include students in discus- sions of rules and of consequences for misbehaviors.

In contrast, behavioristic models are more highly teacher directed. They are based on the belief that misbehaviors are learned or result from failure to learn appropriate alternative behaviors. They recommend the judicious and systematic use of behavioral consequences to minimize classroom management problems—and to correct them when they do occur.

Note that rules are basic to all classroom management systems. When teachers-in-training were asked to recollect what they considered the most effective classroom management strat- egies they had experienced as K–12 students, the episodes they recalled seldom related to qualities like “with-it-ness” or “desists” or “smooth transitions.” Instead, they tended to focus on classes where rules were clear and well-established (Balli, 2011). One of the main differ- ences between humanistic or democratic and more behavioristic approaches to classroom management simply relates to the extent to which learners are involved in establishing rules.

B. F. Skinner: Behavior Modification The main emphasis of the highly learner-centered classroom management models consid- ered so far has been preventive. In contrast, this section looks at approaches that are more corrective.

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The immediate objective of corrective discipline is to change or eliminate a particular behav- ior. Reinforcement and punishment are among the most common elements of corrective disci- pline. Not surprisingly, strategies of corrective discipline often use principles of conditioning theory (described in Chapter 5). Collectively, these strategies define behavior modification (sometimes called behavior management or behavioral intervention).

The most common sequence for a behavioral intervention program for an individual student involves four steps:

1. Defining the problem. Often a written list is developed of behaviors that are too fre- quent (speaking out in class) or too infrequent (not volunteering answers for ques- tions). An attempt is made to determine how serious (how frequent or infrequent) the behavior is, often by counting occurrences.

2. A situation is created to try to change the behavior. This usually involves identify- ing what triggers the behavior and what reinforces it, and deciding how to change antecedents and consequences.

3. A reinforcer or reinforcement system is chosen. This might involve determining whether there are existing consequences that serve to reinforce a too-frequent behavior, or whether new consequences might reinforce an infrequent behavior.

4. The behavior modification program is implemented. The program should specify, often in a contract with the student, how antecedents and consequences will be used and how the student will be involved. Following the program’s implementation, the teacher and student evaluate its effectiveness and determine whether additional or different intervention is desirable.

Extrinsic Reinforcement Applying positive reinforcement as a corrective strategy often involves rewarding behaviors that run counter to those that present a problem. For example, if a teacher’s attention rein- forces Sally’s disruptive behavior, the teacher might try to pay attention when she is not being disruptive and ignore her when she is.

Teachers have at their disposal a wide vari- ety of potent reinforcers including smiles, grades, attention, and praise. When these social reinforcers prove ineffective, more elaborate reinforcement systems can be established. One example is a token sys- tem where students earn points or tokens for good behavior and sometimes lose them for less desirable behavior. Tokens are not inherently reinforcing, but they can later be exchanged for tangible rewards. Token sys- tems are among the most common class- room management systems. They have the advantage of being easy to implement, and they can be used on an individual or a class basis. In addition, they can be used to teach students to delay gratification.

Michaeljung/iStock/Thinkstock ሁ Teachers have a wide variety of reinforcers

at their disposal. Praise may be one of the most effective.

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Tokens are one example of extrinsic reinforcement. Other commonly used extrinsic rein- forcers include attention, praise, stars, grades, and promotion, or desirable activities. This last option illustrates the Premack principle (Premack, 1965), which states that behaviors that a child chooses spontaneously and frequently when given the opportunity to do so can be used to reinforce less frequent behavior. Parents and teachers use this principle constantly: A child is allowed to play outside after eating supper; a student is permitted to read a book or use an electronic device after completing an assignment.

Intrinsic Reinforcement Unlike extrinsic reinforcement, intrinsic reinforcement is not under a teacher’s direct con- trol. It includes all sources of reinforcement that come from within rather than from out- side—things like satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment. The teacher can nevertheless structure learning situations in ways that are most likely to lead to intrinsic satisfaction. As we saw in Chapter 8, teachers can foster an intrinsic (mastery) orientation by manipu- lating tasks (personal involvement in challenging but achievable tasks); type of evaluation (social comparisons foster a performance orientation and a reliance on extrinsic sources of reinforcement like grades); and use of authority (providing students with opportunities for meaningful autonomy—say, in determining questions worth investigating—fosters an intrin- sic orientation).

Seven Principles for Effective Reinforcement Michael (1967) describes seven principles to keep in mind when attempting to control behav- ior through its consequences. Some of these principles have been discussed earlier, but all are important enough to bear repeating.

1. The consequences of behavior, whether rewarding or punishing, are defined only in terms of their effect on the learner. Teachers should not always assume that a stimu- lus they consider pleasant for a student will strengthen behavior. Peer attention, for example, is generally strongly reinforcing. But for a very inhibited student, peer attention may be quite punishing.

2. The effects of reinforcement are automatic. The teacher need not explain to students that if they learn well, they will receive some specific reinforcement that will then lead them to study even harder. If students do learn and are consequently reinforced, they will probably study even harder without ever having discussed this marvelous phenomenon with their teacher.

3. Reinforcement or punishment should be closely related to the desirable (or unde- sirable) behavior. Teachers must have short-range goals clearly in mind so they can reinforce behaviors that match those goals. And students need to understand why they are being reinforced (or punished).