There are various trends in classroom management that are currently popular. Four main strategies that are current include: Wong’s Pragmatic Classroom; Kagan, Kyle, and Scott’s Win-Win Discipline, Canter’s Behavior Management Cycle/Assertive Discipline, and Morrish’s Real Discipline. Each strategy has strengths and weaknesses.
There are various negative classroom conditions and behaviors that also are current today. Five of these problems will be analyzed to see if any of the current classroom management styles would work in those situations.The first classroom management strategy is Wong’s Pragmatic Classroom. The expectation of Wong’s strategy is that everything is planned out for the students. The whole day “clearly defines expectations for students and how to achieve those expectations” (C). Students are directed on “where to sit in the classroom and they are to begin on an assignment that is laid out for them upon entering the classroom” (C).
This is an easy to follow classroom strategy because all the student has to do is follow the instructions.The teacher has the ability to control the classroom because of the clearly defined layout of the class work and the schedule. Wong’s Pragmatic Classroom provides “structure, order, and discipline” (C). When a teacher establishes an order and routine for students to follow every day, “students experience an order that allows learning to flourish in the classroom” (C). By having the day planned out, the teacher can “focus on being productive to prevent problems rather than wasting time reacting to problems (C).
This is a heavily structured and very rigid classroom management strategy. One disadvantage to this strategy is that if class is disrupted for any reason, the whole class could get off schedule which could jeopardize the plan for the class. The second classroom management strategy is Kagan, Kyle, and Scott’s Win-Win Discipline. This strategy “targets the roof of discipline problems, students unfulfilled needs” (B).
With this strategy, a teacher will try to “meet student’s needs or give them respectful or responsible strategies for dealing with their unmet needs” (B).When the needs are met and the teacher can teach without the worry of unruly or disruptive behaviors, then the students and the teacher both win, thus the name, Win-Win. The Win-Win Discipline is based on the concept of “Positions” (B). There are seven positions of the Win-Win Discipline, which are: 1) Attention Seeking, 2) Avoiding Embarrassment, 3) Anger Venting, 4) Control Seeking, 5) Energetic, 6) Bored, 7) Uninformed (B).
“Once we see disruptive behavior as merely an attempt to meet the needs associated with a position, our job as a teacher becomes clear” (B).Students have to learn how to meet their own needs without being disruptive. When this happens, students are content because their needs have been met and the teacher is able to teach in an uninterrupted environment, which is a Win-Win. The critical part of the Win-Win Discipline is that teachers need to learn how to identify a student’s position. This is necessary so that the correct discipline can be implemented. “For consistent success, a discipline program must identify and respond to the position of disruptive students” (B).
This discipline strategy is one that requires a teacher to know where a student’s position is. A disadvantage that could arise is that a teacher could assume that a student is in a different position. By guessing the wrong position, a teacher could mistakenly administer the wrong solution and this could lead to a temporary fix, but it would not address the student’s actual needs. The third strategy is Canter’s Behavior Management Cycle/Assertive Discipline. This strategy relies heavily on positive reinforcement and not negative reaction.
Teachers teach students how to behave, set up clear rules, communicate those rules, and teach students how to follow them (A). Assertive Discipline concentrates on positive reinforcement. Teachers try to “catch students being good” and “let them know you like it” (A). For this strategy to work, it has to be a “systematic discipline plan that explains exactly what will happen when students choose to misbehave” (A).
This will let all students know what is expected and what the consequences will be when they “choose to misbehave” (A). A teacher needs a plan of discipline in the classroom.Canter suggests that an effective plan might include consequences for misbehavior. He suggested that students should get a “verbal warning” for the first time a rule is broken (A). The second time a student breaks a rule, the student should receive a timeout of ten minutes (A).
For the third rule infraction, a 15 minute timeout should be given to the student (A). For the fourth infraction, the student should receive a phone call home (A). For the fifth infraction, the student should be sent to the office (A). For each rule infraction, there is a step up in severity of the consequences.
The teacher should find a way to keep track of a student’s infractions. One way this could be done is by using a board on which to write down a student’s name and number of infractions. A teacher without stopping the lesson, could just say to the student, “You talked out, you disrupted the class, you broke a rule. That’s a warning. That’s a check” (A). Canter’s strategy stresses that students must understand that they have made a choice and that they are being disciplined because of the choice that they made.
The teachers need to make sure that students understand that choices have consequences.An advantage to the Assertive Discipline Plan is that it gives the student the choice to change his or her behavior or face consequences. The consequences are fair and consistent to all students. A drawback to this strategy is that many students need to be taught self-control and that there are consequences to their actions. The fourth strategy is Morrish’s Real Discipline. Morrish’s Real Discipline “refers to all the techniques that great parents and teachers use to teach children to be respectful, responsible, and cooperative” (A).
Real Discipline ensures that children are informed and “prepared for the choices that they are given” (A). Adults need to be a good guide for the students and to have the “authority to make choices for the students until they are ready to make them on their own” (A). Real Discipline is made up of three parts. The first part is called, “Training”, where “children are taught to comply with rules and limits and do what they are told to do by people in a legitimate position of authority” (A).
The second part is called, “Teaching Cooperation” (A).The teachers are to “teach children the skills and attitudes for being responsible and cooperative” (A). The final part is called, “Managing” (A). Responsible adults “provide children with more and more choices as they get older so that they can learn to be independent” (A). The advantage of Morrish’s plan is that it gives the student somewhat limited choices as they start to grow up.
This can cause a student to feel empowered and more self-confident in his or her own abilities. By having students feel confident in their abilities, they will strive to be more responsible so that they can receive even more responsibilities.The downfall to this strategy is that student’s choices could cause them to fail and then they might become frustrated and this could spiral down until they are not confident in their own abilities. These strategies are all great in that they are designed to help develop good classroom management practices.
Wong’s Pragmatic classroom is good because it plans out the whole day and has the students busy as soon as they come in the door. The Win-Win strategy is good because its aim is to meet the students unfulfilled needs, thus reducing discipline problems.Canter’s Assertive Discipline plan is a more positive reinforcement type of classroom management. The advantage of this plan is that teachers use positive reinforcement, not negative reinforcement. This leads the class to feel good about itself. By a class feeling positive and confident, there should not be major behavior problems.
Morrish’s Real Discipline has the advantage of letting students have some limited choices. This prepares them for later on in life as they will have to make more choices. There are disadvantages to each plan as well. Wong’s Pragmatic classroom is very structured.If an incident occurs that derails the class, then it seems that due to the structure of the class, it would be hard to get the class back on track and still keep everyone on schedule.
The disadvantage to Kagan, Kyle, and Scott’s Win-Win plan is that while teachers are trying to address a student’s unfulfilled need, they could misdiagnose the student’s position. This could lead to a response that is ineffective. “A discipline program that responds only to the disruptive behavior and not the underlying student’s position will have a hit-or-miss success rate” (B).A disadvantage to Canter’s Assertive Discipline is that it is in constant need of adoption and training.
It also requires teachers to teach students how to make wise choices, because some students do not know how to make correct behavior choices. Morrish’s Real Discipline plan’s main disadvantage is that it allows the student to have a choice. This could lead to the student choosing not to complete assignments, or choosing to misbehave on purpose. There are several negative classroom conditions and behaviors that teachers face on a daily basis. Using these classroom management strategies might help solve some of these problems.
There are five main classroom conditions that I find cause the most problems. These conditions are: 1) students that do not care, 2) students that lack self-control, 3) inadequate teacher preparation, 4) discipline that is not fair and equal to all students, and 5) lack of discipline plan consistency among teachers. The first negative classroom condition is when students do not care. This could be a position that could be addressed by the Win-Win Strategy.
By a student showing that he doesn’t care about class, he could be saying that he is uninformed.By a teacher taking the time to explain why the student needs to do the work and why he is required to be in school, this will let the student know “the rules of the game” (B). By a student knowing the rules of the game, he will be able to grasp why he is there and feel confident in his abilities. Also, by a teacher taking the time to explain the class to the student, this will build on the teacher-student relationship and hopefully, this will lead to the student trusting the teacher more and help the student in his classes as well. The second negative classroom condition is when the student lacks self-control.By a student lacking self-control, he could be easily distracted and always ready to disrupt class.
By using Wong’s Pragmatic classroom strategy, a student that lacks self-control and is easily distracted will be constantly set in an orderly environment and have something to do at all times. A student that is kept stimulated and busy is less likely to become unruly and lose control. The third negative classroom condition is when a teacher has had inadequate teacher preparation. Nothing is worse than having a class where the teacher is unprepared and disorganized.
By having all the supplies needed for class and having the lesson planned out in advance, class will run more smoothly and the students remain engaged and the learning environment is ripe for learning. Wong’s Pragmatic Classroom is a strategy that could help the teacher make sure that everything is ready to go beforehand. By going over the class, since everything is supposed to be set up in advance, a teacher will know if the lesson is fully ready. By teachers being prepared, they are able to adapt if there is a need for a change, as well.
The fourth negative classroom condition is one where the discipline is not fair and equal to all students. Canter’s Assertive Discipline would ensure that the ground rules for discipline would be known to all students. Teachers would be responsible for informing the students of what would be acceptable behavior in class and teachers would also, let the students know what would be unacceptable behavior. By a teacher informing the students and posting the rules, this would ensure that warnings and further discipline are equal and fair to all students.The last negative classroom condition is one where the administration does not support the teacher in classroom management and discipline. Some administrations are only concerned with the score on the student’s paper.
They are not concerned with how a student acts in class. Having a discipline policy that is less strict than the teacher’s, could undermine the teacher’s authority in class. By a teacher and district having different discipline procedures at each and every school, it could lead to for the to that are moving through different schools as well as students that are graduating to another school.What strategy could be used? In conclusion, I can see that there are varying styles of classroom management strategies. They can all work well if a teacher is ready to implement them fully. It seems that there is not a firm set of rules where classroom management is concerned.
As a new teacher, I can see that I might need to apply more than one classroom management strategy and use a of more than one. The different strategies seem to lend themselves to each other and a good teacher could adopt them all and make them work together.
