Strategies for General Classroom Management (Part II)

The following information is from Unit 13 of the book Teaching: A Course in Psychology by Wesley C. Becker, Siegfried Engelmann, and Don R. Thomas. 

Note: Science Research Associates published the book in 1971. I am unsure if the publishers reprinted the book or if it is available to buy. I found it through a university inter-library loan program. I suspect that Becker or Engelmann use the book or some form of it in their special education teaching classes at the University of Oregon.

• How to set up the classroom
• The physical layout of the class affects behavior
• Think of what activities you want in your classroom and structure it to support them
• Examples: small group instruction, individualized instruction, independent work, technology
• Do not assume you need the standard lecture layout with rows of students chairs
• What other things do you need to structure the classroom?
• Examples: rugs, work tables, screens, equipment carts
• Be able to move around the room to help the students learn

• Organize the day
• Plan that all students do not finish tasks in the same time
• Plan a cushion activity that is also reinforcing
• All students will do it
• Plan a secondary activity that some students can do
• Provide systematic prompts or reminders to let students know what to do
• Clear cues save time
• Examples: color-coded names, signs, lists, verbal reminders, individual folders, check-out stations, and turn-in boxes
• Provide consistent routines
• Motivate students to finish one activity with the reward of the next activity
• Example: “when you finish the worksheets, you can play a game”
• Provide changes in pace
• Examples: quiet work and then singing or talking, serious work and then a game, sitting and working and then moving around for a few minutes

• The first day of class
• A teacher will behavior management principles does something else rather than act tough to be easy later or act too nice and have problems
• The first day objectives
• Show the students you know how to reinforce them and you like to
• Make yourself important so the students will want to behave
• Show the students your class makes learning fun
• Show the students that you expect everyone to be good workers
• Begin with a group activity involved in some subject to be covered
• Payoffs for working
• With younger students show what fun things can happen with learning, like racing the teacher at something or use letter sounds for bingo (short term payoff)
• With older students discuss what the subject area can do to help the students with jobs or hobbies (the long-term payoff)
• Plan a short teaching lesson with the whole group and make it fun
• Then use what you teach to play a group game
• Then give a short assignment that can be done independently
• Praise example of good work (reinforce rules for good working)
• Then you can do activities on acquainting the students
• Give out name tags if needed
• Introductions can be done

• Students get excited before fun things of going to recess, lunch, and home
• Do not dismiss a rowdy class
• The students have to be quiet and orderly
• Otherwise you reinforce the misbehavior to get out of the room
• If students do not follow the rules:
• Partial loss of recess
• Delay in lunch
• Delay in going home
• Give specific and matter of fact instructions
• Example: “when all of us sit in our seats, with desks cleared, and our arms on the desks, I will call one row at a time to line up. Johnny’s row was ready first, so they may line up first.”
• Be overly specific if you need to keep student attention and possibly motivate them (seem like a game)
• Example: “stand on the white tiles”

• Behavior outside of the class
• The bathroom
• With young students a teacher or aide can supervise near the bathroom
• For older students you can assign a group leader
• You can give points for good bathroom behavior
• But only do this with behaviors you really need to work on
• Going in and out of the school
• In unit 5 there was discussion of giving tickets to students with good behavior to earn a prize for the class
• The principal can also praise students for coming and going
• The playground
• Sometimes the students fight on the playgroup and it is hard to reinforce cooperative behavior
• One possible reinforcement: tokens or points for good behavior
• Points are lost when fighting occurs
• Points must be valuable or they will not matter to the students
• Punishment might be required
• Example: loss of recess for a certain amount of time

• How to get the students to ignore misbehavior
• The reinforcement system only provides a payoff to those students who help you
• Example: a hyperactive student earned points for the whole class for staying on-task 10 seconds at a time
• To motivate the students to leave him alone, they earned candy for his staying on-task
• Students can help you with distractions, show-offs, and clowns

• How to use other school staff to improve behavior
• Do not send students to someone who is nice to him (or gives him the attention he craves) when he misbehaves
• Special service staff should not reinforce disruptive behavior
• Work out a set of daily or weekly objectives for class behavior improvement to be met by the student
• THEN he can get to spend time with the particular staff member

• Special events and holidays
• Use holidays for reinforcements (activities, plays, and parties related to the holidays) for good behavior
• Requirements are that the students earn the privileges with good behavior
• Few students should be excluded if you are consistent
• A student will only be left out because he does not believe the teacher will enforce the requirements

• Kindergarten example of individualized instruction
• The teacher divided the students into four groups with color names (red, green, blue, and purple)
• She divided the classroom into four study area with tables for six students
• Next to each area were materials and fun activities
• Fun activities were things like clay, games, record player with headsets, paint supplies, coloring books, glue, and puzzles
• She also had a rug for a music area for everyone and an area by the blackboard for everyone to work in whole group instruction
• The routine to acclimate the students to the groupings
• She put color coded name tags on the appropriate tables for the students
• When groups shifted the teacher shifted the colored name tags and students knew where to go right away
• In the beginning the first tasks for everyone were coloring and cutting and gluing
• When the students were used to the routines of these activities, the teacher gave them an additional task
• She let them work with the fun activities in their group areas
• She told the students they could move to a new activity area each week so they could play with everything
• Then she introduced reading or math before the fun activities
• The students were already able to two tasks independently so the teacher started to teach small groups for an hour and a half a day
• The students stayed on task due to motivation by the things and the teacher  praise
• To let students know to clean up, she put on a record
• The first student who cleaned up could sit in a group leader’s chair in the music area
• As the other students finished they sat in front of the group leader who led them in imitation games
• The students had five minutes to clean up and did their routines smoothly
• Individualization of work
• Folders were prepared with materials and instructions for the students
• There was a place to pick them up and turn them in
• To get help
• The students put up red tents for “help” rather than hand raising

• Summary
• Make teaching fun
• Use good material (fun or exciting)
• Use attention-getting style
• Be interesting
• Vary pacing, rhythm, loudness, pauses
• Have surprises
• Turn drills into games
• Deliberately make mistakes for students to fix
• Be a good reinforcer
• Praise behavior not the person
• Set up class to reinforce students for things you want them to learn
• Strengthen reinforcers if social reinforcement and activities in the class are not enough to motivate a student or students
• Try a token system
• Reinforce often in the beginning
• Gradually reinforce less
• Reinforce at the same time as giving tokens
• When you punish
• Do it immediately
• Rely on taking away reinforcers
• Provide clear rules to get them back
• Use a warning signal
• Carry the punishment out calmly
• Give reinforcement for behavior incompatible with the problem behavior
• Be consistent
• Avoid reinforcing the misbehavior