20th and 21st Century Classroom Management Pioneers
By
Discipline through Assertive TacticsLee and Marlene Canter
• Believed teachers should be in charge of their classrooms by being “calm, insistent and consistent” in their interaction with students
• Developed the idea of student & teacher rights• Suggested that student behavior is tied to meeting
student and teacher needs• These ideas were known as “Assertive
Discipline”
• Classified three types of teachers:• ◦ Hostile: “view students as adversaries”• ▪ takes away fun & trust• ◦ Nonassertive: “overly passive”• ▪ causes student insecurity & frustration• ◦ Assertive: model & express clear
expectations• ▪ meets student & teacher needs
Discipline through Assertive Tacticscontinued
• Encourages teachers to write out discipline plan that includes:
• ◦ Rules: express how students should behave• ◦ Positive Recognition: rewards students who keep
class expectations• ◦ Corrective Actions: must be consistent, shows
students they've “chosen the consequences”• ◦ Discipline Hierarchy List: shares “corrective
actions and the order in which they will be imposed within the day”
• Suggest that students must be taught the discipline plan
Discipline through Assertive Tacticscontinued
• Created the concept of rights in the classroom
• Insisted teachers have a “right” to be supported by administration & parental support
• Provided procedures for efficient correction of student misbehavior
Discipline through Assertive TacticsContributions to Discipline
Discipline through Democratic Teaching
Rudolf Dreikurs • Supposed that students behave best when they
believe that good behavior has social value• Self control can be seen when students “show
initiative, make reasonable decisions, and assume responsibility”
• Suggests that teachers & students working together to decide how the class should work, creating a democratic classroom
• ◦ Autocratic & Pessimistic classrooms don't have good discipline
Discipline through Democratic Teachingcontinued
• Believes students want to behave & belong, this is their “genuine goal”
• ◦ Students feel they belong when the teacher & their peers provide “attention, respect, involve them in activities & don't mistreat them”
• When students don't belong, they:• ◦ seek attention• ◦ seek power• ◦ seek revenge• ◦ feel inadequate
Discipline through Democratic Teachingcontinued
• When students misbehave, they're pursuing mistaken goals
• ◦ teachers should correct students by identifying their behavior & discussing the faulty logic
• Also suggested students & teachers create class rules together
• ◦ Rules need logical consequences for following & breaking the rules
• Believed punishment should never be used
Discipline through Democratic TeachingContributions
• First to base discipline on social interest• First to suggest democratic structure of classroom management• Suggested teachers use encouragement• Made several suggestions for teachers about encouragement, a
few:• ◦ “Always speak in positive terms”• ◦ Encourage students to seek improvement• ◦ Focus on student strength• ◦ Offer comments to encourage students• Teachers felt his system was difficult to “implement” & didn't
stop immediate disruptions
Discipline through Influencing Group BehaviorFritz Redl & Wattenberg
• Believes students behave differently in a group then when they're alone
• Felt group dynamics “strongly affect behavior” • Suggested students take on different “roles” in
the classrooms• ◦ Class clown, leader, follower, etc.• Determined that students have roles teachers are
expected to fill• ◦ role model, referee, judge, etc.
Discipline through Influencing Group BehaviorContinued
• Determined that student behavior an be influenced by techniques like:
• ◦ supporting student self control• ◦ offering situational assistance• ◦ appraising reality• Believes that punishment should be rarely
used, never physical, and only consist of pre-planned consequences
Discipline through Influencing Group BehaviorContributions
• Identified group behavior as different from individual behavior
◦ Made it easier for teachers to understand confusing classroom behavior
• Provided an organized discipline techniques that used humane strategies
◦ This helped develop and maintain positive student-teacher relationships
• Stressed understanding why students don't behave◦ Addressing causes for misbehavior will eliminate it
Discipline through Influencing Group BehaviorContributions continued
• Said students should be involved in making decisions about discipline
◦ This technique is now encouraged by most everyone• Showed the negative effects of punishment◦ Explained why it should not be used in the
classroom• These techniques were not used widely◦ Difficult for teachers to understand, put into practiceIdeas helpful, implementation difficult to do
Discipline through Shaping Desired Behavior:
B.F. Skinner • Believed that voluntary action is affected
by immediate reinforcement• ◦ Rewards help motivate action• Reward= reinforcement stimulus• ◦ Must be given immediately after the
good behavior• ◦ Can be results, awards, free-time,
praise, etc.
Discipline through Shaping Desired Behavior:Continued
• Created techniques to use in shaping student behavior• ◦ Constant reinforcement: teacher provides every
time student behaves well • ◦ Intermittent reinforcement: after students
understand the classroom management system• The result of these techniques is success
approximation:• ◦ When “behavior comes closer and closer to a
preset goal”• Believed punishment should not be used because “its
effects were unpredictable”
Discipline through Shaping Desired Behavior:Contributions
• His ideas led to “behavior modification”
• ◦ Still used today for “strengthening and encouraging” learning
• Not used as much in upper grades
• ◦ Didn't tell students what “not to do”
• ◦ Teachers ignored misbehavior
• Lengthy process
Improving Discipline through Lesson ManagementJacob Kounin
• Suggested teachers could manage a classroom well if they knew what was going everywhere in the classroom at all times
• ◦ Teachers who know what's going on can anticipate problems and address them before they occur
• Called teacher awareness “withitness”• ◦ Created “overlapping,” which means a
teacher was involved with two or more classroom events at the same time
Improving Discipline through Lesson ManagementContinued
• Believed that lessons played a huge part in classroom management.
• ◦ Group alerting: the whole class is paying attention before a teacher gives directions
• ◦ Momentum: keeps students focused by making transitions, efficiency, etc.
• ◦ Smoothness: also helps with management, as the teacher presents lessons and teaches them without changes.
• Lesson should keep students from boredom and frustration
Improving Discipline through Lesson ManagementContributions
• Connected teaching to student behavior & discipline
• Not wholly adopted because didn't address how to deal with disruptive misbehavior
Discipline through Congruent CommunicationHaim Ginott
• Suggested that learning happened in real time• Encouraged teachers not to pre-judge students as
learning is personal• ◦ Teachers should use “congruous
communication,” which “stresses situations, not students' character or personality”
• Teachers don't “preach, moralize, impose guilt or demand promises”
• ◦ These are teachers at their best• ◦ Teachers at their worse “label... belittle... and
denigrate” the characters of their students
Discipline through Congruent CommunicationContinued
• Teachers shouldn't dictate, but “invite cooperation” from students
• ◦ Good teachers use the question “how can I be most helpful to my students right now?”
• Good discipline involves using “I” instead of “You” messages
• Suggested that “appreciate praise” is better than “evaluative praise”
• ◦ Evaluative praise praises what “students have done, rather than referencing the student him or herself”
Discipline through Congruent CommunicationContinued
• Suggests teachers should respect student privacy• ◦ Teachers should be available, but not too
curious• Suggests teachers avoid sarcasm & punishment• Determines that teachers should avoid behaving
in ways that they don't want their students to behave
• Believes classroom discipline is a process
Discipline through Congruent CommunicationContributions
• “Showed the importance of the teacher being controlled”
• Showed how valuable being on the same wavelength as the students is for teachers
• It's easy to see these ideas in modern discipline systems
• Some teachers feel the ideas don't stop misbehaviors quickly
References
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