Activity 1: Applying Classroom Rules and Procedures

This Blog post concerns both: when and how I will give positive reinforcement to students who are following the rules and procedures in my classroom and when and how I respond when students break classroom rules or not following procedures. Both are important aspects of the pedagogical process. To start let me give an scenario of what I do to give positive reinforcement to my students who are following rules and procedures. In my science classroom this year we did a unit on gravity and motion. The curriculum was a bit dry for this content, so I came up with a plan to incentivize the students work on what may for them be a boring subject. We made a plan to make the focus of our work on gravity and motion be around roller coasters. Each day that students were able to follow procedures and bring in completed homework we added a coin to a team jar in the classroom. at the end of the lesson sequence if all of the procedures were followed and students lived up to the classroom norms (established at the beginning of the school year) then I would organize a trip to Chiamalong (an amusement park a short distance from the school) where we could enjoy and research real roller coasters. The students were energized by the challenge of doing well on homework and paying attention in class to be able to receive this reward. Prior to this unit the students had not displayed any notably poor behavior but they had started to show some burn-out as it was in April and there was no Spring break vacation to refresh them through until the end of the school year. I found the students enjoyed checking in at the end of class each day and putting the coin into the class jar as their reward for working well together. As Marzano (2007) points out on page 132 this sort of approach to classroom behavior management can act as both a reinforcement of positive behavior (the reward being the roller coaster, and in a way as a potential punishment (if they do not get enough coins in the jar they will not get the classroom trip to the amusement park. Marzano would call this approach a "token economy" (p.134) where someone receives some sort of reward for behaving properly but as it was tied to a whole class activity it felt more contextually appropriate and less behaviorist then just giving the kids candy for good behavior. A Gliffy flowchart of this decision making process might look like the following:

On the other hand, I use a variety of techniques to deal with students who are not following rules and procedures. In one scenario I had a student that was copying work off of the internet, placing it into his online answers folder and as such passing it off as his own. What I did was to fist pull him aside after class and one on one, ask him if the work was his own. Second, when he admitted to the plagiarism I told him he we would have to follow the norms of the school rules around coping work and speak to the principal. In this instance, the student spoke to the principal the next day and also had a phone call made home to his parents. The student subsequently apologized to me for the plagiarism and we agreed on a process to help him with his homework in the future, so he would not feel the need to do it again. There are a few things I could have done better in this example. First, I would have done a better job at reminding the students though-out the year of the importance of doing ones own work and of the school policies if they did not. Second, I would have done a better job checking in with students who were beginning to have difficulty with their homework so they would not feel the need to cheat. When and how I give positive or negative reinforcement to students so that they follow the classroom rules and procedures is an important part of teaching. It is one of the most difficult parts as well. Deciding when it is appropriate to give a punishment can have long lasting effects in a classroom community. In the examples I have given here the outcomes were positive but I am aware this can not always be the case and in some instances students feelings will be raw after they are reprimanded. I will continue to fine tune my skill at classroom behavior management as it is as much an art as a science.