Classroom Management for Teaching Artists - Creating a Learning Environment

Classroom Management for
Teaching Artists

Creating a Learning Environment

With
Harlan Brownlee
www.ArtsInEducation.net

Copyright S. Harlan Brownlee: No copying or other reproduction of this work allowed without the express written permission of the author, ©2012

A Case Study-Pair/Share
– A Contagious Situation
• In what ways has Ms. Cornell planned for her classroom in
advance? In what ways has she not planned?

• Why are Eli, Jake, and Vanessa so disruptive right from the start?
Can you think you think of possible reasons related to how Ms.
Cornell has begun the school year? Can you think of possible
reasons related to the activities related to the activities Ms. Cornell
has planned?

• Why does the misbehavior of the three problem students continue?
Why does it spread to the other students in the classroom? Why is
it particularly common during downtimes in the school day? Can
you answer these questions based on your own personal experience
and observations?

Possible Reasons
• Ms. Cornell has identified her instructional
objectives and developed numerous lesson
plans and activities that should help her
students accomplish those objectives. But
she has not developed a plan for creating
and maintaining an environment conducive
to learning.


Possible Reasons
• Ms. Cornell begins the curriculum she has planned on the
very first day of school, before students have had a chance to
settle in and fell comfortable in their new classroom.
Teachers should typically begin the school year with easy,
enjoyable tasks that allow a pleasant and supportive
classroom climate to be established
• Ms. Cornell may be presenting especially difficult material
and tasks. Students are more likely to misbehave when they
are asked to do things that are probably too difficult for them
• Ms. Cornell does not set limits regarding classroom
behavior.


Possible Reasons
• The students have pent-up energy that needs to be released
– an unmet physiological need.
• It’s possible that Ms. Cornell’s expectations for
performance are unclear, generating anxiety for the
students.
• The students don’t see the relevance of classroom subject
matter to their own lives (motivation).
• The students don’t believe that they are capable of being
successful at classroom tasks and activities (i.e., they have
low self-efficacy) because they have had a string of
failures in previous years. When students attribute their
failures in a particular activity to a lack of ability, they are
unlikely to exert effort in that activity.

Possible Reasons
• The three students are being reinforced for such behavior
by the attention they are getting from their classmates.
• Ms. Cornell is doing nothing to dissuade them from
behaving as they do. Other students may be starting to
behave in a similar fashion either because of vicarious
reinforcement (Eli, Jake, and Vanessa are getting a lot of
attention from peers) or because of the nonoccurrence of
expected punishment (something that is actually
reinforcing)
• The misbehavior may be especially common during down
times because there is little going on to keep students’
attention focused on academic endeavors or to reinforce
them for appropriate behavior.

Creating an Environment Conducive to Learning

• Arranging the classroom
– Spatial arrangement
– Student arrangement
• Creating an effective classroom climate
– Mood / Music
• Setting limits
– Rules / Reinforcement / Consistency


• Planning activities that keep students on task
– Challenging/ but not too difficult
– Differentiated Learning
• Monitoring what students are doing
– Withitness
• Modifying instructional strategies when
necessary
– Improvising when necessary
– Like the actor – reading your audience and
adjusting

• Overlapping
– Doing more than one thing at a time
• Cueing a student about inappropriate behavior while
simultaneously conducting a lesson
• Smoothness & momentum
– Moving through a lesson from one activity to another
smoothly and with unnecessary pauses or slow-downs
• Directing questions to potentially disruptive students
• Group alerting
– Keeping all student attentive and involved in classroom
activities
• Asking all student to respond in unison to a question
• Calling on any student at any time – no hand raising

• Be honest with students
– Teachers and students alike should express their beliefs
and feelings openly and candidly.
• Communicate acceptance
– Students should believe their teacher accepts and
respects them as valued and worthwhile human beings,
despite any mistakes or shortcomings they may have.
• Be empathic
– Teachers should try to see the world through students’
eyes and attempt to understand students’ individual
perspective and needs. They should be understanding
and supportive rather than critical and judgmental.

Learning Activity
• Develop a short list of rules that a teacher at
the elementary or secondary (groups choice)
might use to start out the year.

• Develop several good activities for getting
students actively engaged on the first day of
school.


Effective Classroom Management Strategies
• Ms. Schutz describes three major
assignments that students in her literature
class must complete during the semester,
and together she and her students come to
an agreement about a reasonable due date
for each assignment.
• Effective – This strategy gives students a
sense of control over their classroom life
and thereby promotes intrinsic motivation.


• When Mr. Dembrowski must take a few
minutes to help Stacey with a difficult math
problem, he turns his chair so that he can
simultaneously watch his other students
working quietly at their desks.
• Effective – Ideally, a teacher should be able
to see what all students are doing at all
times.


• Ms. Smith’s middle school social studies
students know that when they first get to
class, they should take out their journals and
write their reactions to a news event
described either in yesterday’s newspaper or
on last night local television news program.
• Effective – This procedure gives students
something to do during a transition time.


Strategies for Dealing with Student Misbehavior

• Ignoring
– Behavior unlikely to be repeated
– Behavior unlikely to spread
– Unusual circumstances trigger the behavior
– Behavior does not seriously interfere with
learning
• Cueing
– Behavior is a minor infraction but interferes
with learning
– Behavior likely to change with subtle reminder


• Private discussion
– Cueing has been ineffective
– Reasons for behavior might suggest
strategies for change
• Promoting self-regulation
– Student has a strong desire to improve
behavior



• Behaviorist approaches (reinforcement)
– Behavior has continued over time and
significantly interferes with learning
– Student seems unwilling or unable to self-
regulate
• Parent Conference
– Source of problem may lie outside of school
– Parents probably willing to collaborate


Dealing with Student Misbehavior
• Pair/Share Activity


• Mr. Marzetta notices that Janie is doodling
in her notebook during his explanation of
the water cycle. He is surprised to find her
doing so, because she is a good student who
always performs well on assignments and
quizzes.
• Ignoring: Janie’s behavior does not appear
to be interfering with her learning.


• At the end of art class, Eric is so busy
talking to someone else that he has
forgotten to clean his pottery wheel.

• Cueing: Eric simply needs a reminder
about appropriate behavior.


• Although Jerri willingly completes tasks that she can
do at her desk or in small cooperative groups, she
consistently refuses when Mr. Jones asks her to do
anything that involves speaking in front of the entire
class.
• Private discussion; Jerri seems motivated to do well
in school, as evidenced by her willingness to complete
other tasks. Yet repeated cueing has not produced a
change in her attitude toward public speaking tasks.
By talking privately with Jerri, Mr. Jones may be able
to find out why she balks at such tasks.

• Missy clicks her ballpoint pen constantly during class,
to the point where the students around her are being
distracted and annoyed. Over the past few weeks, Ms.
Givens has repeatedly asked Missy to stop the
behavior, but it continues unabated. Missy tells her
teacher, “I know I should stop, Ms. Givens, but most
of the time I don’t even realize I’m doing it.”
• Self-regulation. Missy is motivated to change her
behavior. Ms. Givens might have Missy begin with
self-monitoring, recording each click she catches
herself making.

• Heidi is physically aggressive toward her classmates whenever
things don’t go her way. Elliot has talked with her about her
behavior several times but has seen little improvement in her
behavior. Heidi seems to have little interest in changing how
she interacts with other students.
• A behaviorist approach: Heidi’s behavior is interfering with
school activities and is potentially jeopardizing the safety of
others. Cueing hasn’t worked, and Heidi isn’t motivated to
change on her own. Mr. Elliott might try to extinguish or
punish aggressive behavior (e.g., with time-out) and then teach
and reinforce more appropriate behaviors. He might also try to
determine if aggressive behavior serves some purpose for Heidi
and, if so, teach her alternative ways of satisfying her needs.


• Ms. Schweck finds Andrew sleeping in her class
two or three times a week. When she speaks with
Andrew about the problem, he tells her that he
really enjoys her class and wishes he could stay
awake. He says that he often has trouble falling
asleep at night and so is quite tired in school the
following day.
• Parent conference: A private discussion with the
student has been ineffective, and the source of the
problem appears to lie outside school walls.


Gradual Release of Responsibility

T S T S T S


Example Activity
• Hand sculptures
– Ground rules
• Body Twister
– Ground rules
• Function following Form
– Engaging imagination
• Form following Function
– Working within structure


Reflection
• What classroom management strategies did
I incorporate into the previous activity?

• Which strategies discussed and reviewed
today will you be able to utilize in your
classroom and in what manner?


Classroom Management for Teaching Artists - Creating a Learning Environment

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