Eight Steps to Classroom Management Success

A Guide for Teachers of Challenging Students

George Kapalka

• Publisher: Corwin
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9781412969444
• eBook ISBN: 9781452273396
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

"This is a practical, ready-to-use ?cookbook? to manage typical classroom misbehaviors. Following the steps results in a win-win situation, with both the teacher and the student saving face and maintaining integrity."
—Marilyn Gonyo, President
Education Assessment Center

"Kapalka presents scenarios of difficult cases that educators often encounter. This is an easy-to-read manual for quick referencing. Keep a copy by your desk."
—Maria Barresi-Devore, Consulting Psychologist

A step-by-step approach to managing your most challenging students!

Every classroom has one or two students with more challenging behavioral issues that often require a significant amount of an educator?s time. For teachers who have already tried an assortment of behavior management strategies without much success, this unique resource presents a focused, cohesive plan of eight specific interventions that are proven to work with students who are defiant, willful, and have limited self-control.

This step-by-step plan, based on separate empirical studies that verified how every step contributes to overall behavior improvement, provides solutions to specific problems that teachers commonly experience. Deliberately sequenced and designed so that each step builds on previous interventions, the techniques include:

• Giving simple instructions
• Using appropriate warnings
• Handling tantrums
• Creating behavioral contracts
• Managing transitions
• Preventing disruptions
• Improving behavior outside the classroom
• Developing effective homework routines

Filled with detailed explanations for accurate implementation to improve the likelihood of success, 8 Steps to Classroom Management Success targets the most common behavior trouble spots and provides the most effective techniques to address each.

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Step 1

Give Effective Single-Action Commands

After reading the preceding discussion, you should now have a greater understanding of why some students exhibit behavioral problems that are difficult to manage and what it will take to address these problems. Beginning with this chapter, you will learn techniques to tackle common trouble spots that teachers often encounter with oppositional students. As mentioned earlier, you will gain the most benefit from the following steps if you read only one chapter at a time and try to implement only one step every one to two weeks. It’s best to proceed slowly. The steps are easy to implement, but you’ll need time to get used to each step and to include it in your daily class routine. Each step becomes most effective when you are so familiar with it that using it becomes automatic. Likewise, your students will also need time to get used to your new management style. As I pointed out previously, students respond best when their environment is routine and predictable. Consequently, they need time to adjust and to learn what to expect from you, the teacher.

We need a starting point to begin our journey, and the most logical place is to consider the one aspect of teacher-student interaction that probably accounts for the majority of all teacher-student communication. When teachers talk to the whole class, they usually explain, demonstrate, and clarify. However, when a teacher addresses a student directly, it is most commonly to give an instruction, ask a question, or give a command. So, for the first step, let’s focus mainly on two aspects of your interaction with the students:

1. How to give a command to your oppositional and defiant student
   
2. What to do when your student obeys the command

For starters, select some commands with which you usually have problems obtaining compliance. These should be direct, simple commands that require a single action, such as “Return to your seat,” “Put away the toys; play time is over,” or “Open your math book.” Don’t use complex commands that call for more multiple actions. The way to obtain compliance in these types of situations is addressed in later steps. For now, focus on very direct, simple commands that require a single, specific action by your students.

Let’s return to the example of Barry and his teacher from the Introduction. Many problems were evident in the interaction between them, and these will have to be addressed separately. Perhaps the one problem that appeared to permeate this vignette was his noncompliance with numerous commands given by his teacher. Let’s take another look at a portion of this example.

Example

As the recess comes to an end, the teacher asks the children to return to their assigned seats. Barry is the last one still in the back of the room. While the children return to their desks, Barry starts to build a tower with the building blocks.

The teacher addresses Barry from across the classroom: “Barry, put those away and return to your seat.”

Barry replies, “In a minute.”

The teacher starts giving out a handout with a math assignment. Barry is still playing with the blocks. The teacher says, “Barry, I said put those away and come back to your desk.”

“But I just want to finish building the tower!” Barry says.

The other children start working, and the teacher starts to circulate around the room to see if anyone needs help. Barry is still playing.

She raises her voice: “Barry, your work is waiting here for you.” He responds, “I’m not finished!”

The teacher answers a question from another student and realizes that Barry is still in the back of the room. She tells Barry, “Come to your desk now, or I’ll have to tell your mother you’re not listening.”

Barry does not respond. The teacher, still in the front of the room, answers another student’s question and then yells, “Barry, did you hear me? I am calling your mother!”

Barry does not respond and continues to build.

The teacher, now visibly angry, marches toward Barry, starts to take the blocks out of his hands, and pulls him toward his desk. Barry starts yelling and crying: “But I was not finished! It’s not fair!” He throws the blocks he still has in his hand across the room.

He gets to his desk, still crying, and his noise is disrupting the other students in the classroom.

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Let’s analyze some aspects of this example. The teacher’s attempts to direct Barry were given in the midst of other activities in the classroom. Although this probably wouldn’t pose a problem for many students, Barry requires a different approach. When dealing with an impulsive, oppositional, and defiant student, the teacher should stop what she’s doing, approach the student directly, and not resume any other activities until the interaction with this student has ended. While this will require more time for each specific instance, it will be time well spent, as it will improve student compliance and decrease the likelihood of conflicts.

In addition, it is apparent that Barry did not want to follow through on the stated command right from the start, and the teacher did not take any steps to help him process the situation and reconsider that choice. The teacher merely repeated the command, and the situation gradually escalated. At one point, the teacher did threaten Barry, but for reasons that are described in the next chapter, this threat was similarly ineffective. In the end, the interaction merely escalated the conflict. There must be a better way.

Well, there is, and in this chapter I describe a more effective approach. However, we must appreciate that the situation illustrated in the earlier example, although apparently simple at first glance, is rather complex and composed of discrete elements that must be examined separately. Thus, I review command giving in two chapters. In Step 1, I describe how to give a command in a manner that maximizes the likelihood of effectiveness, as confirmed by research studies with two different groups of teachers (Kapalka, 2001, 2005b). Step 2, in the next chapter, covers what to do if Step 1, when used alone, is ineffective. However, please do not try to combine Steps 1 and 2. It is really important that you give yourself sufficient time to practice Step 1 and the techniques described in this chapter before proceeding to Step 2. In addition, the procedure described herein helps you develop a new way of communicating with your student and serves as the foundation upon which further components of this program are built. Please do not simply glance over it and move on.

The Effective Command

As outlined in Step 1 Checklist at the end of this chapter, there are three components to an effective command:

1. Attentional cue
2. Command
3. Follow-up look

Let’s look at each of these in detail.

The Attentional Cue

As mentioned before, you have to devote your undivided attention to your student while you attend to the command. However, you must also get attention from your student. In the example of Barry and his teacher, the teacher was issuing commands to him while attending to other things and did not assure that Barry attended to or processed the commands. Instead, the first thing to do before issuing a command is to get undivided attention. This is accomplished through the attentional cue.

The simplest way to cue your student to pay attention is to call his name. However, as illustrated earlier, it’s not sufficient to call to the student from across the classroom. Instead, you must try to get eye contact. Walk closer to your student and call his name. If calling his name is not enough, tell him, “Look at me.” If this is not sufficient, go to him and get his eye contact by adjusting your own position so that you can catch his eye or any other reasonable way that results in direct eye contact with him. As was clearly evident in the aforementioned example, long-distance commands with no eye contact almost guarantee noncompliance.

Face-to-face commands are more likely to be respected and followed. Why? There are several reasons. Human eye contact defines the interaction as one that involves mutuality, akin to a contract between two people, where the implicit understanding is that it will involve a call and response—a give and take. The listener understands the defined role of both communicators. He may not necessarily like what is being said, but he is more likely to respond to it, rather than ignore it. Although it isn’t a guarantee of success, it greatly increases the likelihood of compliance, and teachers of difficult students need to stack the deck in their favor. This alone may not result in compliance, but when combined with the other techniques you’ll utilize, it will certainly help.

Getting eye contact has additional benefits. Some students get so involved in an activity that they tune out much of what is going on around them. Even if they briefly acknowledge that someone is talking to them and telling them something, they are likely to pay limited attention to the content of the communication and process it very little. Students with attentional difficulties, such as attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), are very likely to behave in this manner. When they don’t comply, it may not be an overt sign of defiance; it may be that the command you issued didn’t fully register. Getting eye contact momentarily breaks what they are doing long enough for them to process what was said. Afterward, they are more likely to perform the desired behavior.

What happens when you don’t get eye contact was well illustrated in the example with Barry. Most of the commands were given from across the room as the teacher attended to several other tasks. Obtaining compliance from Barry seemed no more important to the teacher than attending to those other tasks. Barry likely perceived that he really did not have to listen because the teacher was busy doing other things. It is important to point out that his response was more instinctive rather than premeditated; nevertheless, he knew that he was more likely to get away with continuing what he was doing because the teacher was occupied with other issues. Through eye contact you break the student’s current activity, get his full attention, and send a message to him that you expect him to attend to what you’re saying. In short, eye contact helps you communicate that you mean business.

The Command

Once you obtain eye contact, it’s time to issue the command. There are many ways of issuing a command, and no particular strategy works for everyone. The exact way anyone issues a command is a matter of that person’s personality and therefore is very individual. However, there are several principles that are crucial to increasing the effectiveness of a command. Keeping them in mind will help you increase your student’s compliance.

Eye Contact

First, remember to issue the command while you are looking your student right in the eyes. Don’t look away until you finish telling your student the command. If your student briefly looked at you and then looked away, do not be concerned, and do not attempt to get eye contact again. You have already accomplished what the eye contact was intended to do. Now, proceed to the command itself.

Be Respectful but Firm

Both components of this statement are equally important. The respectful part is crucial. Think about your own life and people you’ve known who were in positions of authority over you. You probably remember some of them more fondly than others. Those you still remember kindly were respectful of you and addressed you with consideration. On the other hand, those you disliked the most were the ones that made you feel unimportant and treated you as if you were inferior. You were probably more likely to follow a command given by a “nice” boss than a “nasty” one. It is true that we respect those who respect us.

When I hold training workshops, one of the most frequent laments I hear from teachers is that their students don’t respect them, yet I encounter so many teachers that command their students with an angry voice, and sometimes with demeaning remarks. Teachers who want respect from their students must first give it. Students deserve to be treated with dignity.

Having said that, remember that the command must also be stated firmly. Some teachers give commands to students in a plaintive manner, almost as if they were begging for obedience. Others explain a command exces...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Introduction: Why Do Students Misbehave?
• Prologue: Prepare Yourself
• Step 1: Give Effective Single-Action Commands
• Step 2: Give Effective Warnings
• Step 3: Handle Flare-Ups and Tantrums
• Step 4: Construct a Behavioral Contract
• Step 5: Manage Transitions
• Step 6: Discourage Interruptions
• Step 7: Improve Behaviors in Out-of-Class Settings
• Step 8: Develop an Effective Homework Routine
• Conclusion: Maximize the Improvement With Additional Techniques
• References