Ideas for Classroom Management
- Organization of space is huge
- Consider lighting, decorations, furniture, equipment/storage
- Organization of furniture
- Arrange for different activities, switch up groups of students, make materials accessible, ensure student/teacher ease of navigation, make sure it’s accessible
- Climate & Rules
- Which students get along? To what extent can you push boundaries/alter animosity?
- Consider student desires & input when creating class expectations, rules, procedures
- Make sure to make everything explicit, clear, unambiguous
- Teacher design
- Creating different activities based around MIs and DI
- Incorporate active learning
- Consider cooperative learning methods
- Positive Behaviour Supports (PBS)
- Acknowledge positive behaviours to reinforce them and avoid reinforcing negative behaviours with attention (even if corrective)
- Proactive methods include prompting, positive reinforcement, and cues
- Teaching students to reform and monitor their own behaviour can empower them and help curtail negative behaviours (consider Ms Miles teaching to knit)
- Reinforcers of behaviour
- Positive reinforcement: rewarding a behaviour to encourage its repetition
- Primary Reinforcers: edibles, sensory stimulation such as music, soft items, movement. Often used with young children learning behaviours for first time
- Secondary Reinforcers: tangible items, privileges or activities, generalized items (tokens, grade points), social opportunities (seating arrangements, etc.)
To Decrease Inappropriate Behaviour
1. Discipline must be consistent with goal of safe & caring classroom
2. Instructional activities must be minimally interrupter
3. Misbehavior or not? It depends on the context
4. Match the severity of discipline with behaviour
5. Be culturally responsive
Addressing Minor Issues
1. Change classroom environment; rearrange desks, students, etc.
2. Cues & redirection: eye contact, gestures, proximity, verbal communication (inserting student’s name into question, example, etc.), response request (ask them a question, even a simple one)
3. Ignore the behaviour; be sure to monitor class to decide if it is getting worse or going away
4. Extinction: withholding a reinforcer (usually attention) from a negative behaviour to make it gradually decrease and stop. Must be sure that behaviour does not escalate to an unacceptable/interruptive point
5. Establish and maintain consequences of rule violations; especially helpful if students helped develop them early on. Make sure that consequences are directly related to the issue to establish connection between behaviour and punishment
