Alfie Kohn’s perspective to classroom management encourages teachers to include students in a co-constructive process. This has shown to have effects on general well-being, effects on behavior and values, and effects on academic achievement.

When a student is recognized in a role, they are more likely to take ownership and buy in to the tasks. This team approach instills accountability in students, and sets them up for academic success.

The teacher is less of a dictator, and more of a facilitator. This is a less demanding role in many ways, and sets up the teacher and students for overall increased well-being.

At the TrekNorth school in Bemidji, I observed the music teacher use these ideas in her own classroom. She assigned roles to the students such as attendance secretary, riser crew, and section leaders. These roles showed students they were needed in class which resulted  in increased attendance. When preparing their music for their concert, she opened conversation with the students about what they wanted to improve on. This was a much more efficient and effective way for improvement to be made in their sound.

I can use ideas from Alfie Kohn’s perspective in my own classroom, to create a managed classroom and set my students up for academic success.

https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/choices-children/

B. F. Skinner opened the idea of behavior modification which is now used by teachers everywhere. His theory bases off of reinforcement: behavior which is reinforced tends to be repeated, and behavior which is not reinforced tends to die out-or be extinguished. Providing praise, approval, and encouragement to students with good behavior with reinforce the good behavior, and providing undesirable consequences for bad behavior will extinguish the bad behavior.

He also found that the ratio of five compliments for every one criticism was most effective in altering behavior in a desired manor.

I observed this system being implemented in the classroom for my practicum experience last Spring. In the elementary music room at Red Lake Elementary school, the teacher had a poster on the board entitled, “Logical Consequences.” These consequences included:

-Take a Break: regain your self-control

-Loss of privilege: if you are not responsible, you lose a privilege

-Reparation: you broke it, you fix it

I think each of these consequences have a logical explanation of why they would be used especially for a music classroom. I will try to implement my own logical consequences in my own classroom for undesired behavior. I will also strive to reinforce good behavior through praise, approval, and encouragement.

https://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html

With more and more studies being conducted, it is found that discipline is much more effective in teaching students than punishment. Lori Disautels states,

Paula Cook focuses on classroom management ideas involving students with specific disabilities including learning disabilities, ADHD, sensory integration dysfunction, bipolar disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, and autism spectrum disorder. These are all disorders that students in your classroom may be struggling with, and thankfully Paula Cook provides some awesome insight to maintain a well-managed classroom.

For students with learning disabilities, consider slowing down the pace of assignments, giving both visual and verbal directions, assisting with organizational skills, and providing notes to students during lectures.

For students with ADHD, consider integrating increased structure in the classroom, limiting distractions, color coding materials, and giving advanced warning when transitions are about to take place.

For students with sensory integration dysfunction, try to keep the classroom tidy, remove loud and unpredictable noise, and give directions slowly.

For students with bipolar disorder, take steps to ensure cognitive therapy is available and be aware of what mood your student is in so you can try not to aggravate it.

For students with oppositional defiant disorder, use positive reinforcement and fewer words when speaking with students.

And for students with autism spectrum disorder, consider modifying the physical environment, keeping to routine, and avoiding sensory overload.

https://classroommanagementtheory.weebly.com/paula-cook.html

Because the department of Professional Education at Bemidji State University identifies as a constructivist approach to education, I chose to research an education theorist whom also belongs to the constructivism perspective: Jean Piaget.

I’ve witnessed several of Jean Piaget’s findings during my time spent studying education at BSU. The author states, “Jean Piaget believed in operative knowledge, which implies that change and transformation produce knowledge.” This is the foundation of the constructivism approach to education. Other concepts Jean Piaget believed in were connecting information with prior knowledge and experiences, finding patterns and relationships, identifying rules, and generating principles relevant in different applications. These ideas promote the development of critical thinking skills and set students up for success.

The particular idea of interest I found was identifying rules. Identifying rules is extremely important for classroom management. Rules establish clear expectations for students. It might be fun to consider involving the students in co-constructing a list of classroom expectations. It may also be a good idea to meet with other teachers to develop a set of expectations that can remain consistent. As a future music teacher, I would consider talking to the art teacher and physical education teacher to determine the expectations we each have and decide if we would prefer to collaborate on a set of consistent expectations or each have our own.

https://www.funderstanding.com/educators/jean-piaget-cognitive-development-in-the-classroom/

Click to access 9a7b4988df15c68a14434a5f162bef984723.pdf

https://www.responsiveclassroom.org/special-area-rules/

After viewing different websites containing information on different classroom management programs, I’ve written my thoughts on Responsive Classroom, PBIS in the classroom, and Whole Brain Teaching. Thank you for reading!

Responsive Classroom

Responsive classroom is a popular classroom management program that has shown success in many schools. Responsive classroom focuses on the social aspects students experience at school. I had the opportunity to learn more about responsive classroom during my practicum experience in addition to the research I’ve done.

Building responsive classroom into a school-wide implementation is best to create consistency. The school may consider a school-wide signal for attention, school-wide discipline practices, and consistency with teaching lunch, recess, and hallway practices. With consistent expectations established, students have less to remember and there is less stress on the teacher. Another important aspect of responsive classroom is modeling by faculty members. I really agree with this concept and find it very important. If the attention signal has been made, teachers should also follow along to model for students. Teachers should also model respectful behavior in the hallway, during lunch, and recess

PBIS in the Classroom

PBIS stands for Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports. It focuses on improving school safety and promoting positive behavior. PBIS is built on the belief that every child can learn proper behavior. The hope is by stepping in early, more serious behavior problems can be prevented. PBIS also believes that students are different and have different behavioral needs. It strives to track student behavior overtime in order to make educated decisions about behavioral problems.

PBIS is a tiered system. Tier one refers to the general population of students, tier 2 provides extra support for students who continually struggle with behavior issues, and tier 3 is designed for students who need individualized attention.

I share the same beliefs that this system presents specifically regarding every student having the ability to learn proper behavior. I like the tier system and think it is a good way to account for students of all different levels of behavior management needs.

Whole Brain Teaching

Whole brain teaching is an approach that focuses on the way our brains are designed to learn to maximize student engagement. Research has shown that whole brain teaching is effective at all levels of study (kindergarten through college.) There are seven core components of integrating whole brain teaching including the class, the five rules, the “scoreboard game”, and the “Teach-OK then switch”.

Whole brain teaching suggests using a one-word attention getter for the first component. The five rules component suggests teachers establish clear expectations and associate an action with each rule so students remember. The scoreboard game component provides a basis for rewarding good behavior. By keeping track of good behavior on the scoreboard, the good behavior will likely increase. The “Teach-OK” component calls upon the students to mimic the teaching of the teacher after being exposed to knew concepts for a brief amount of time. This practice helps the students to better remember.

The whole brain teaching approach offers good resources that can be applied in the music classroom. The one word attention getter may be useful, but I foresee it being too brief to be recognized in a noisy environment such as a music classroom. I do like the five rules component that incorporates action. I think kinesthetic movement is most helpful in remembering things.

https://www.responsiveclassroom.org/taking-the-responsive-classroom-approach-schoolwide/

https://www.advanc-ed.org/source/whole-brain-teaching-learning-way-brain-designed

https://www.understood.org/en/learning-attention-issues/treatments-approaches/educational-strategies/pbis-how-schools-support-positive-behavior