Professional Learning Summary

I want to learn more about behaviour management in the classroom as it is something that is relevant in all years of teaching. Managing students’ behaviours is challenging as a new teacher and it looks different in each class. Behavioural problems often occur as young students are developing the ability to regulate their emotions and bodies. Disruptive behaviours include but are not limited to talking aloud, walking around, and aggression. These behaviours usually occur because a child is seeking attention from people, they want to escape from people, they want an item/task, or to escape from an item/task. The school day can flip from being bad to good with great classroom management skills and by understanding students.

The first article is Managing Student Behaviour with Class-Wide Function related Intervention Teams: An Observation Study in Early Elementary Classrooms by Caldarella, Williams and Hansen. The second article is The Use of Group Contingencies for Preventing and Managing Disruptive Behaviours by Hulac and Benson. The last article is Managing Disruptive Behaviour of Student in Language Classroom by Khasinah.

Calarella et al., found that classroom management should allocate time for instruction, the arrangement of instructions for engagement and proactive behavioural management strategies. Their study focused on Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) which included fostering positive relationships, defining expectations during instruction time and to providing feedback to students regarding their social skills. They emphasized that it is better to provide feedback on something they did/said instead of giving empty feedback, such as “good job”, which can weaken their intrinsic motivation, thus leading to bad behaviour and lower accomplishments. This study placed students in groups and when they behaved appropriately, they were rewarded with points, stickers, bubbles, art, and games. Students were taught to ignore inappropriate behaviour displayed by peers and teachers were to praise appropriate behaviour. In addition, this study also had a self-management option giving autonomy to students. This intervention decreased disruptive behaviours, increased on-task behaviour and increased appropriate behaviour in the classroom.

Hulac and Benson explain three group contingencies including dependent, independent, and interdependent. Group disruptions occur when students do not follow expectations or when students encourage another child to misbehave. When a student is showing problematic behaviours, it can easily be maintained by their peers and they are often difficult to manage. They emphasize to enhance group contingency; everyone must consistently ignore the disruptive behaviour, which is consistent with Calarella et al.,’s study. Group contingencies also shouldn’t be used to punish an entire class or remove a regular activity such as recess. It is important to set achievable expectations for all students without calling attention to students with particular behaviours, such as OCD

Khasinah’s research suggests teachers should establish relationships with students and parents from the very beginning. The teacher should be friendly, have a positive attitude, listen, speak gently and encourage students. One way to manage behaviours is by creating a learning contract together to bind the class and hold students accountable. This study mentions three types of disruptive behaviour; the back-row distractor, the non-participant and the over-exuberant student. Many disruptive behaviours can occur due to many things, such as the teacher, parents, poverty, poor quality teaching, negative attitudes, lack of motivation, bad influence, and poor environments. To create a welcoming classroom, the teacher needs to balance praise and criticism, respect of others, and provide feedback on student progress, especially for ELL students. It is important to create expectations for student and careful lesson plans with clear instructions to stay on task and reduce bad behaviours. When there are multiple ESL/ELL learners in the same class, avoid grouping them together so they can learn from the help of other English students and explain the value of group work.

After reading these articles, I wonder if my associate teacher had read the same articles. I see she has done many of the same things, such as ignoring the negative behaviour so the students will stop attention-seeking. She also always positively reinforces students, especially those who need extra encouragement. Moreover, she does not say “great work”, but she compliments them on the positive action, such as “Look at how many sentences you wrote, you were very focused.”

I think it is a great idea to create a learning contract to have expectations for students to follow, which I have seen when I was volunteering in a Kindergarten room. My associate teacher emphasizes how important it is to build a relationship with the parents and students, which we also learned in a few classes. The parent is someone who can influence how the child learns at home and it’s important to build the trust with the parents from day one and as well as the students since we are together for 6 hours a day. My associate teacher meets with parents after six weeks of school and is always in contact with parents through newsletters, emails and phone calls to provide feedback. As a teacher, I must remember to save face and always remain calm on the outside to keep the classroom under control. I am undecided about the aspect of rewarding points to groups. I can see how it may increase motivation for positive social behaviour and focus on work, however, I wonder if it will cause conflict as it may be challenging for some. From past experiences, even when students got eliminated in musical chairs, a meltdown would occur, or some students did not care for a reward.

From my experience at YMCA, I have seen how peer attention can continue and reinforce negative behaviour from particular children. When this happened, I would attend to the misbehaving child to try to figure out the problem. Had I known earlier, I would have told the children to ignore the negative behaviour and informed them that some students need space to gather their thoughts before they are ready. In the future, I will find a balance of both, depending on the student’s needs.

I found the article by Khasinah interesting, that one type of distractor is the over-exuberant student, who can take learning away from the other students. Many of my classes this semester suggested strategic pairing, stating to pair a stronger and weaker student together. However, I always thought it was a bad idea because growing up I was a shy student and I know that those who talked more would take over the task and my ideas often weren’t heard. I think it would be beneficial to pair two quiet students together and two over-exuberant students together, this way everyone has a chance to speak.

Furthermore, I also wonder how valuable group contingency would be and I must do more research to develop a clearer sense of awareness on the topic. I can see how there would be an increase in motivation from some students, so they won’t let their peers down in receiving a reward. However, some students may feel too much pressure to complete a task if it is difficult and everyone is reliant on them. For example, in my CSL class there are stronger students than others if it was a dependent group contingency, and it relied on a student who did not complete the task, others may blame that student and name call. In addition, some may purposely sabotage their group for fun, which would be unfair for everyone else if it is a dependent or interdependent group.

In general, building relationships, setting expectations, creating clear instructions, and remaining positive is the first step in managing behaviours in the classroom. However, I need to do more research on group contingency which can be a great start in terms of collaborating, decreasing disruptive behaviour and being on-task, but I do not know how feasible it is.