students

co-operation in
classroom

Presented by; Prof Syed Sohail Qasim Naqvi

Principal Govt Premier College (evening)
Methods to solicit students’ co-operation in
classroom
❖ Discipline is a ‘built-in’ element of teaching rather than a
‘bolt-on’ extra – it touches every aspect of a school or college.
❖ This view finds support from the influential Elton Report on
discipline in schools, which suggested that a whole-school
policy was vital for effective discipline, ensuring consistency
of vision and practice.
❖ The strength of the Elton Report is a realisation that a
behaviour policy is not just about behaviour but touches
every aspect of the formal and hidden curriculum of school
and their relationships with the wider community.
Methods to solicit students’ co-operation in
classroom
❖ Good behaviour and good teaching cannot be separated.
❖ A school discipline policy however, is not guaranteed to
reduce misbehaviour .
❖ Hart et al. demonstrate that there is little relationship
between a school’s construction and implementation of a
discipline policy and the levels of students’ misbehaviour or
the level of teacher stress caused by misbehaviour .
❖ They further assert, it is better to create a supportive
atmosphere that helps teachers to cope with the
misbehaviour that they have to face.
Key principles for good behaviour in classroom
activities
❖ The need to ‘promote the positive” and to build self-esteem in
students.
❖ The need to provide opportunities for students to experience
success.
❖ The centrality of motivation, interest in and enjoyment of all
aspects of college life
❖ The need to attend to and support the “whole person”.
❖ The promotion of empowerment, autonomy and
responsibility in students.
Key principles for good behaviour in classroom
activities
❖ The need for consistency.
❖ The inclusive nature of a policy, involving and addressing all
aspects of college life and curricula, all relevant parties,
(within and outside the college) and all aspects of the student
(e.g. psychological and emotional well-being), i.e. a concern
for total quality.
❖ The recognition that pastoral, behaviour al and academic
needs exist in the symbiosis with each other.
Key principles for good behaviour in classroom
activities
❖ The need to promote a positive ethos and climate in the
college and classroom which extends to the physical,
emotional, psychological and social as well as to the
academic aspects of college.
❖ The need to consider the ‘persona’ of the student.
❖ The need to be proactive, considering preventative measures
and measures to de-escalate trouble quickly.
❖ The need for negotiated and agreed rules, rewards and
sanctions
❖ The need for communication, e.g. of expectations,
boundaries, acceptability, responsibilities, rules, praise
feedback.
Key principles for good behaviour in classroom
activities
❖ It is clear from this list that attention is focused on people, on
intervention and on accentuating the positive.
❖ This accords with the findings of the Elton Report, Mortimore
et al, Galvin, Costa and Mercia that punitive schools
appeared to promote poor behaviour
Other considerations for good behaviour in
classroom
1. How to promote positive environments.
2. How to be proactive and fair.
3. How to plan and implement the formal curriculum to
support good discipline.
4. How and when to involve other parties.
5. Making plans for management and discipline effective in
practice.
1. How to promote positive environments

Promoting the positive

❖ An emphasis on accentuating the positive rather than
focusing on the negative.
❖ Encouraging`, teaching and rewarding good behaviour and
positive relationships.
1. How to promote positive environments

Motivations, praise and enjoyment

❖ Making school and learning interesting.
❖ Reinforcing the positive, extinguishing the negative.
❖ Providing feedback to students.
❖ Providing opportunities for success.
❖ Providing earned and appropriate verbal and non-verbal
praise.
❖ Recognising relative as well as absolute success.
❖ Public recognition of achievement and effort in class,
assemblies.
❖ Conveying enthusiasm and enjoyment.
1. How to promote positive environments

Self-esteem and success

❖ Valuing students’ contributions and communicating this to
them.
❖ Promoting student autonomy, empowerment and ‘voice’.
❖ Avoiding labelling.
❖ Avoiding humiliation, sarcasm, insult and ridicule.
❖ Asking for students’ views/accounts and taking them
seriously.
❖ Recognising non-academic achievements
1. How to promote positive environments

Ethos and climate

❖ An open, welcoming, stimulating, caring and
supportive climate within the classroom
environment (however defined)
1. How to promote positive environments

Equal opportunities
❖ Addressing gender, race, class, abilities, special needs: an equal
opportunity to contribute and to learn.
❖ Intervening to reduce stereotyping and stereotyped behaviour .
❖ Responding quickly to incidents and behaviour which violate equal
opportunities.
❖ Avoiding stereotyped teachers’ responses to students.
❖ Being alert to racial and sexual harassment and bullying.
❖ Being aware of statemented students those with special needs.
❖ Valuing all cultures.
1. How to promote positive environments

Roles and relationships

❖ The promotion of positive role models.
❖ Showing an interest in all aspects of students’ life.
❖ Being friendly and ‘human’.
❖ Knowing students as individuals.
1. How to promote positive environments

Responsibility, self-reliance and respect

❖ Developing autonomy and responsibility in students, e.g. for
their work, behaviour , learning.
❖ Providing opportunities for students to exercise autonomy
and responsibility.
❖ Being polite and respectful, expecting politeness and respect.
❖ Providing opportunities for self-discipline.
1. How to promote positive environments

The physical environment

❖ Involving the students in keeping the physical environment
attractive and free from graffiti, litter, etc.
❖ Dealing with those who violate the physical environment.
❖ Being clear on how students should move round the
classroom and where they may/may not go.
1. How to promote positive environments

The physical environment

❖ Classroom layout and the use of floor/wall space/furniture,
location of and access to resources, students’ personal space
and personal belongings.
❖ A stimulating, clean and welcoming environment.
❖ Classroom display.
❖ Arrangements for moving round the classroom/teaching
spaces, avoiding circulation bottlenecks.
❖ Monitoring entrance/exit of students and monitoring
students outside the classroom e.g. in corridors and play
spaces.
2. How to be proactive and fair

Expectations and communication

❖ Being overt, clear and precise over expectations.
❖ Teaching appropriate and acceptable behaviour .
❖ Communicating the criteria for acceptable behaviour .
❖ Discouraging anti-social behaviour .
❖ Diffusing confrontations and challenging behaviour .
❖ Having high but realistic expectations in a variety of fields and
communicating them.
❖ Avoiding the negative self-fulfilling prophecy;
❖ Making criticism constructive.
2. How to be proactive and fair

Being proactive and taking preventative measures

❖ Confrontation avoidance.
❖ Anticipating problems and adjusting demands.
❖ Stopping unacceptable behaviour before it escalates. Spotting
incidents in the making.
❖ De-escalating unacceptable and challenging behaviour.
❖ An avoidance of crisis-driven, responsive behaviour wherever
possible.
❖ Staying calm and ‘taking the heat’ out of situations.
2. How to be proactive and fair

Setting and communicating boundaries

❖ Developing routines, e.g. for accessing and returning resources,

giving in work, going to the toilets, moving round the classroom,
starting sessions, entrance and exit, establishing attention.
❖ Monitoring and intervening in unacceptable behavior .
❖ Maintaining eye contact.
2. How to be proactive and fair

Setting and communicating boundaries

❖ Being clear and unambiguous, and checking that everyone

understands expectations/task.
❖ Avoiding ‘bargaining’, arguing with students and being
pressured by students.
❖ Being overt on expectations and boundaries and reinforcing
these frequently.
2. How to be proactive and fair

Consistency, fairness and whole-school practice

❖ Adhering to the whole-school policy

❖ Ensuring consistent application of rules, rewards, sanctions.
❖ Sharing individual experiences and supporting individuals.
❖ Consistency of standards, for example, school uniform, jewelry.
❖ Avoiding punishing whole groups if some individuals do not deserve
it.
❖ Ensuring appropriate differentiation of application with respect to
different students and situations.
❖ Ensuring fairness in administering incentives for good behavior
3 . How to plan and implement the formal curriculum to
support good discipline.
Curriculum matters
❖ Matching, differentiation, stimulation, motivation and
sustaining interest.
❖ Making demands realistic, meaningful and achievable.
❖ Monitoring and assessing learning and providing feedback to
students.
❖ Marking work promptly.
❖ Communicating the purposes of the lesson and the criteria for
success/achieving the purposes.
3. How to plan and implement the formal curriculum to support
good discipline.
Curriculum matters
❖ Provision of extension and reinforcement material.
❖ Planning curricula and activities with discipline considerations
in mind.
❖ Examining timetabling to reduce discipline problems,
unnecessary movement/disruption/’slack’ time.
❖ Avoiding ‘slack’ time (i.e. time where students can avoid being
occupied) and increasing learning/teaching time.
3. How to plan and implement the formal curriculum to support
good discipline.
Teaching and learning

❖ Task orientation and a purposeful, brisk rate.

❖ Using group work for social and emotional development.
❖ Using group work to defuse the potential for attention-seeking
behavior to disrupt large numbers of students.
❖ Finding out about and building on students’ preferred learning
styles.
3. How to plan and implement the formal curriculum to support
good discipline.
Teaching and learning
❖ Finding out and using teaching and learning styles that minimize
bad behavior and accentuate good behavior .
❖ Providing opportunities for student - centered learning.
❖ Attention to specific classroom teaching skills; beginnings,
transitions, conclusions, questioning/explaining/giving instruction/
listening and responding/building on students’ contributions/
checking understanding and working/summarizing; vigilance, use of
voice – volume/speed/pitch/conviction, planning and preparation,
timing, accessing and returning resources, being mobile
3. How to plan and implement the formal curriculum to support
good discipline.
Teaching and learning

❖ Setting and implementing time-limits.

❖ Providing variety in curriculum content and teaching styles.
❖ Balancing teaching and learning styles.
❖ Preventing troublesome students from dominating the class.
4. How and when to involve other parties

Home, school and community

❖ Peer group support/pressure.

❖ Two way communication with home and school.
❖ Communicating not just the negative.
❖ Where relevant, involving parents early in many aspects of
education and behavior not just as last resort.
4. How and when to involve other parties

Non-teaching staff

❖ Keeping all adults involved in school informed of relevant

policy matters and how they impact on practice and working
with students.
❖ Involving non teaching staff in decision-making.
❖ Providing support for non-teaching staff in their interactions
with students.
❖ Keeping an eye on their interaction as we cannot leave their
interaction unchecked as normally they are not dealing students
with care.
4. How and when to involve other parties

Lunchtimes and breaks

❖ Supervision by teaching and non-teaching staff.
❖ Making lunchtimes and playtimes interesting and constructive,
e.g. with equipment, appropriate supervision, activities.
❖ Arrangements for supervision, behavior and activities in
playtimes/lunchtimes.
❖ Clarity on which students may/may not go into designated areas.
❖ Rules on kinds of activities permitted and forbidden.
4. How and when to involve other parties

Rules and student involvement

❖ Involving students in devising school and classroom rules.

❖ Developing a limited number of agreed, explicit and memorable
rules, e.g. on movement and speed, calling out, listening, going
out of the classroom.
❖ Reinforcing rules frequently
❖ Avoiding idle threats, carrying out threats if made.
5. Making plans for management and discipline
effective in practice
Rewards, sanctions and protocols
❖ Purposes, scope and rationales of rules and their enforcement.
❖ Appropriate rewards and punishment (to fit the behavior and the
student).
❖ Extrinsic and intrinsic rewards-making rewards tangible and real.
❖ Grading behavior , rewards and sanctions to fit the incident, e.g.
talking out of turn---hindering others---making unnecessary noise---
work avoidance---unruly behavior while waiting---rowdiness and
verbal abuse---being cheeky---physical aggression, taking into account
possible reasons tor the behavior .
5. Making plans for management and discipline
effective in practice
Rewards, sanctions and protocols
❖ Avoid over-reacting
❖ Using a range of individual extrinsic rewards, e.g. individual
and public praise, showing work to other students/adults, tokens,
points, ‘stickers’ and badges, certificates, privileges.
❖ Using a range of methods of discouraging unacceptable
behavior , e.g. questioning such behavior , reprimands, e.g. for
damage and abusive behavior , bringing in other staff (e.g. the
head teacher), involving parents
5. Making plans for management and discipline
effective in practice
Rewards, sanctions and protocols
❖ Rewarding/punishing the behavior , not the student (and making this
clear to the students)
❖ Responding quickly.
❖ Avoiding ‘blanket’ punishment which involve non-offenders.
❖ Agreeing protocols for handling aggressive/weak/inadequate students
and parents.
❖ Recording incidents and events.
❖ Arrangements for students who abscond.
5. Making plans for management and discipline
effective in practice
Bullying
❖ The school’s position on bullying and dealing with it (in all its
forms)
❖ Protocols for dealing with incidents of bullying, bullies and
victims at the time and follow-up times, recording and reporting
incidents, event and follow-up action.
❖ Involving parents openly and having a constructive plan to offer
to all parties
❖ Keeping all parties informed.