Introduction

Consider a class that you might be teaching in one of your Curriculum Studies’ subjects during the Practicum. Taking into account your own beliefs, personality and the new educational initiatives which classroom management approach or eclectic approach would you consider most appropriate.

Translate or operationalise this approach into a classroom management system that you might implement in your classroom.

Introduction

To help maximize the learning outcome of his students, an effective teacher should consider his choice of classroom management style, taking account into his philosophy in education, his personality, the changing demands of the education and his class (subject & level).

The management approach, that I would consider appropriate teaching a class of A level Higher Chinese, is that of an eclectic one: primarily based on Carl Roger’s humanistic approach[1], complemented by Rudolf Dreikurs’ Logical Consequences model[2].

The first part of this paper witnesses an analysis of the 3 factors that contribute to this choice of management:

Firstly, I believe that in a successful present-day education system, it should be learner-oriented and the learners should be given the responsible freedom to learn accordingly to their needs and wills (After all, students are the ones learning). In this type of classroom, democratic principles are central to both learning and discipline, and these are clearly demonstrated in both C. Roger’s and Dreikurs’ approaches.

Freedom in the learning process would bring out the intrinsic worth of learning. Students would not care how much the teacher knows unless they know how much the teacher cares about them. The most productive learning occurs when the students like their teachers or the learning (or the subject) itself. (It is ironic that being prescriptive, learning today is usually devoid of its intrinsic pleasure). Of course, to achieve this form of productive learning, a genuine two-way communication must exist in the teacher-student relationship, both affectionately and intellectually. The ability and charisma of the teacher to relate to his learners the real enjoyment and satisfaction of the learning experience, is just as important. Therefore, in the managing process, the teacher should genuinely be himself[3] and his role would be:

1) an active facilitator managing learning activities and supplying his learners with variant learning materials;

2) an experienced learner sharing his learning experience in a collaborative learning process with the students ;

C. Rogers has too suggested the use of various teaching methods and learning activities, such as the introduction of experiential learning objectives (rather than behavioral objectives), project-based learning, peer-teaching and self-assessment etc, to enhance self-governed learning[4]. A successful classroom management would encourage and facilitate positive learning, with minimum disruptions and discipline problem—self-discipline is the best discipline.

However, freedom should not mean over-freedom, especially when it interferes with one’s learning, the right of others to learn, or the teacher’s instruction. Freedom should be guided by critical thinking as unrestrained freedom can cause chaos. Student deviance occurs when the learners misuse their freedom or have lost interest in learning due to unresolved complex causes. In these cases, teachers could offer students several choices and teach them about the consequences of these choices simultaneously. This is where the concepts of Dreikurs’ logical consequences model come in. As these principals are applied to a group of college students, I believe that the use of higher-order moral reasoning (Stage 5 and Stage 6 of Kohberg’s Stage theory of Moral reasoning[5]) to resolve their internal conflicts, is therefore justified. This reasoning is usually accompanied by making the learners understand the useful objectives of intrinsic learning, thus replacing their mistaken goals (associated with their misbehaviors).

Besides one’s educational belief, I also understand that one’s classroom management and discipline approach should be consistent with one’s philosophy of life. My philosophy of life is derivatively reflected in my personality:

These personalities strongly support the democracy and communicativeness of my management approach. Being self-centered, I am however more understanding that everyone has different learning needs and styles. My approach has allowed me to maximize each learner’s potential accordingly, which in turn requires the teacher’s creativity to vary instructional tactics. However, my soft-heartedness has hindered me from adopting the assertive discipline model, which requires consistency in maintaining the authority of the rules. My perception in believing that there are no absolute true and false (but there can be good and bad) in life, justifies the use of Dreikurs’ logical consequences concepts to deal with discipline issues, especially dilemmas.

A few recent educational reforms and their relationship with my management approach are illustrated below:

IT Masterplan for education: The increase use of computers in education allows creativity in both teaching styles and learning habits: both students and teachers are free to select learning resources from the net. Besides, computer-based learning allows students to do independent learning and construct their own knowledge which suits best their learning habits and intelligence. Web-based learning such as the use of web-board also allow teachers and students to build trust, negotiate their ideas, share and exchange information through cooperative learning. All these support my approach, which encourages learner-oriented education and allows greater autonomy in the learners themselves.

Thinking Schools: Future schools would emphasize on critical thinking and creativity, collaborative learning and life-long self-motivated learning. This can be seen as a way to provide freedom to students, by teaching them life-long decision-making skills. This is reflected in my approach, which allows students to make decisions about class rules and topics to be studied using these higher-order thinking skills. In my approach, there would also be an emphasis on conditional knowledge rather than declarative facts to encourage intrinsic learning, which actually helps promote students’ creativity and critical thinking. By guiding pupils to use logical consequences to solve discipline problems such as poor-quality assignments and deliberate lateness for classes, can be seen as alternative ways to encourage critical thinking.

Content reduction in the curriculum: would allow more space and time for time-consuming student-oriented activities such as small group discussion, students’ presentation and projects, so as to promote critical and creative thinking.

It is obvious that these recent initiatives, including those not listed above such as change in assessment and down-up management, are inter-related: content reduction and change in assessment would allow more room for the learning of higher-order thinking skills and IT. These are constituents of a new emerging education system, a product of educational philosophical shift, which aims at educating a group of new learners with greater self-autonomy, so that they can survive in future uncertainties. It is consistent with my management approach.

In the second part, I would demonstrate how this approach could be operationalized into a classroom management system:

Level/ Stream JC1/ Science (In planning this system, I must take into consideration that JC students are young adults who are capable of responsible learning and moral reasoning.)

Subject Higher Chinese (I must consider what are the things that they consider beneficial to learn and how they should be learnt)

In this type of learning environment, students are allowed to participate in making decisions about what is studied, how it is studied, as well as formulating rules. It should help the learners understand that decision making is firmly tied to responsibility.

For example, I would have to set down 4 classroom rules at the beginning, on: 1) Punctual submission of homework; 2) Punctuality and attendance of classes; 3) Attention in class & 4) Practice of courtesy and moral ethics e.g. do not steal or cheat etc.

Both students and teacher should critically discuss the details of these rules and consequences of their violation, with respect to their relationship with positive learning goals.

Teachers should involve their students in cooperative learning experiences. The learners would learn by freely exploring, discovering through various means such as seatwork (which require more reasoning, understanding and application rather than facts), computer-based learning, discussions and projects, which exhibits the principles of construcvists and social construcvists. This can help them enjoy learning, thus creating positive learning goals. Besides, activities such as classroom discussions can create group influence, which have a positive impact on the behavior of almost all learners.

Compare “Your composition is excellent. You got the highest mark”(praise) and “ You seem to really enjoy writing. I can tell that you have put in a lot of creativity and effort in it”(encouragement). The praise encourages the learners to work for performance and extrinsic rewards, but encouragement, a form of intrinsic motivation, stimulates cooperation rather than competition, effort rather than performance. Extrinsic motivation can be used, but should never replace the intrinsic worth of learning.

For example, if a student hand in an incomplete or dirty paper, the teacher may read the paper only if the student submits a complete, clean copy.

Correction of Misbehaviors
The misbehaviors of the learners can be interpreted as actions to gain attention, exercise power, exact revenge and display inadequacy under Dreikurs’ model. Teacher should first identifies the motives (can be sub-conscious) of the misbehaver, through their body language and facial expressions, questions and the reactions, e.g. through reactions:

After that, the teacher is to help him identify his mistaken goals and change his mistaken goals to desirable ones. This should be first done by understanding the pupil, evaluating his behavior and then deal with the problems accordingly [6](such as through a 3step “cognitive, emotional and then behavioral” model: 晓之以理，动之以情，律之以行 ).

Although I have chosen a combination of both Carl Rogers’ and Dreikurs’ theories as my main approach, I believe that other discipline models would be helpful in dealing with different specific discipline problems too. For example Jacob Kunin’s group management model illustrate solutions such as withitness and overlapping, to stop rippling symptoms and thus avoid complications in a classroom. This can be simultaneously applied in the actualization of a particular classroom lesson.

Managing a class is just like managing one’s health. Prevention is always better than cure. If however one is sick, he needs to be examined carefully as each illness needs different medication.

1. Cole, P. G.& Chan L. K. S. (1987). Teaching Principles and Practice. New York : Prentice Hall

2. Dreikurs, R. & Grey, L. (1968). A New Approach to discipline: Logical Consequences. New York : Hawthorne Books.

3. Edwards, C.H. (1997). Classroom Discipline and Management. (2^nd Ed.). New Jersey : Prentice Hall.

4. Emmer, E.T., Evertson, C. M., Clements B. S. & Worsham, M. E.(1997) Classroom Management for Secondary Teachers.

Singapore

: Allyn & Bacon

5. Rogers, Carl R. & Freiberg , H. Jerome (1994). Freedom to Learn (3^rd Ed.) New York : Macmillan College Publibishing Co.

6. Woolfolk, Anita E. (1995). Educational Psychology (6^th Edition). Boston : Allyn & Bacon.

[1] Rogers, Carl R. & Freiberg, H. Jerome (1994).Freedom to Learn (3^rd Ed.) New York : Macmillan College Publibishing Co.

[2] Dreikurs, R. & Grey, L. (1968).A New Approach to discipline: Logical Consequences. New York : hawthorne Books.

[3]Rogers, Carl R. & Freiberg , H. Jerome (1994). As A Teacher, Can I Be Myself? (Chapter 3) in Freedom to Learn (3^rd Ed.) New York : Macmillan College Publibishing Co. Pp 41-69.

[4] Rogers, Carl R. & Freiberg , H. Jerome (1994). Ways of Building Freedom (Chapter 10) in Freedom to Learn (3^rd Ed.) New York : Macmillan College Publibishing Co. Pp 185-208.

[5] Refer to Woolfolk, A. E.(1995). Educational Psychology (6^th Ed.). Boston : Allyn & Bacon. for details.

[6] Refer to Edwards, C.H. (1997). Logical Consequences: Rudolf Dreikurs (Chapter 5) in Classroom Discipline and Management. (2^nd Ed.). New Jersey : Prentice Hall. Pp 85-91 for solutions to deal with specific behaviors of attention seeking, power-seeking, revenge-seeking and display of inadequacy. The assumptions of behaviorists have also been considerations in Dreikurs’ discipline management approach.

Assignment 1

Introduction