The Teacher as

Classroom Manager
 What is your Classroom Management Profile?

Directions. This is a quick poll. Answer these 12 questions and learn

more about your Classroom Management Profile. The
steps are simple:
• Read each statement carefully.
• Write your response, from the scale below, on a sheet of paper.
• Respond to each statement based upon either actual or imagined
classroom experience.
• Then, follow the scoring instructions below.
1. = Strongly Disagree
2. = Disagree
3. = Neutral
4. = Agree
5. = Strongly Agree
What is your Classroom Management Profile?

Let’s START
1. = Strongly Disagree
2. = Disagree
3. = Neutral
4. = Agree
5. = Strongly Agree
 What is your Classroom Management Profile?

1. If a student is disruptive during class, I assign him

/her to detention, without further discussion.
1. = Strongly Disagree
2. = Disagree
3. = Neutral
4. = Agree
5. = Strongly Agree
 What is your Classroom Management Profile?

2. I don't want to impose any rules on my students.

1. = Strongly Disagree
2. = Disagree
3. = Neutral
4. = Agree
5. = Strongly Agree
 What is your Classroom Management Profile?

3. The classroom must be quiet in order for students to learn.

1. = Strongly Disagree
2. = Disagree
3. = Neutral
4. = Agree
5. = Strongly Agree
 What is your Classroom Management Profile?

4. I am concerned about both what my students learn

and how they learn.
1. = Strongly Disagree
2. = Disagree
3. = Neutral
4. = Agree
5. = Strongly Agree
 What is your Classroom Management Profile?

5. If a student turns in a late homework assignment,

it is not my problem.
1. = Strongly Disagree
2. = Disagree
3. = Neutral
4. = Agree
5. = Strongly Agree
What is your Classroom Management Profile?

6. I don't want to reprimand a student

because it might hurt his/her feelings.
1. = Strongly Disagree
2. = Disagree
3. = Neutral
4. = Agree
5. = Strongly Agree
 What is your Classroom Management Profile?

7. Class preparation isn't worth the effort.

1. = Strongly Disagree
2. = Disagree
3. = Neutral
4. = Agree
5. = Strongly Agree
 What is your Classroom Management Profile?

8. I always try to explain the reasons behind

my rules and decisions.
1. = Strongly Disagree
2. = Disagree
3. = Neutral
4. = Agree
5. = Strongly Agree
 What is your Classroom Management Profile?

9. I will not accept excuses from a student who is tardy.

1. = Strongly Disagree
2. = Disagree
3. = Neutral
4. = Agree
5. = Strongly Agree
 What is your Classroom Management Profile?

10. The emotional well-being of my students

is more important than classroom control.
1. = Strongly Disagree
2. = Disagree
3. = Neutral
4. = Agree
5. = Strongly Agree
 What is your Classroom Management Profile?

11. My students understand that they can interrupt

my lecture if they have a relevant question.
1. = Strongly Disagree
2. = Disagree
3. = Neutral
4. = Agree
5. = Strongly Agree
What is your Classroom Management Profile?

12. If a student requests a hall pass,

I always honour the request.
1. = Strongly Disagree
2. = Disagree
3. = Neutral
4. = Agree
5. = Strongly Agree
 What is your Classroom Management Profile?

How did you fair in this quick poll?

Each statement represents one classroom management style.

To score your quiz, add your responses to the items as follows:

  Statements 1, 3, and 9
Statements 4, 8 and 11
Statements 6, 10, and 12
Statements 2, 5, and 7
 What is your Classroom Management Profile?

Now, group yourselves according to your highest scores.

Then, discuss among yourselves and discover what you have in common as teachers.
1. What made you give such responses?
2. How do you deal with discipline problems in the classroom? Share your best
practices as classroom managers.
3. Give a word that best captures your attitude toward classroom management.
(What are you in terms of classroom management?)
 What is your Classroom Management Profile?

• Statements 1, 3, and 9. refer to the AUTHORITARIAN style.

• Statements 4, 8 and 11 refer to the AUTHORITATIVE style.
• Statements 6, 10, and 12 refer to the LAISSEZ-FAIRE style.
• Statements 2, 5, and 7 refer to the INDIFFERENT style.
 What is your Classroom Management Profile?

The result is your Classroom Management Profile.

Your score for each management style can range from 3 to15.
A high score indicates a strong preference for a particular style. After
you have scored your quiz, and determined your profile, read the
descriptions of each management style.
 What is your Classroom Management Profile?

Authoritarian

The authoritarian teacher places firm limits and controls on the

students. Students will often have assigned seats for the entire term.
The desks are usually in straight rows and there are no deviations.
Students must be in their seats at the beginning of class and they
frequently remain there throughout the period. This teacher rarely
gives hall passes or recognizes excused absences.
 What is your Classroom Management Profile?

Authoritative

The authoritative teacher places limits and controls on the students

but simultaneously encourages independence. This teacher often
explains the reasons behind the rules and decisions. If a student is
disruptive, the teacher offers a polite, but firm, reprimand. This teacher
sometimes metes out discipline, but only after careful consideration of
the circumstances.
 What is your Classroom Management Profile?

Laissez-faire

The laissez-faire teacher places few demand or controls on the

students. "Do your own thing" describes this classroom. This teacher
accepts the student's impulses and actions and is less likely to monitor
their behavior.
 What is your Classroom Management Profile?

Indifferent

The indifferent teacher is not very involved in the classroom. This

teacher places few demands, if any, on the students and appears
generally uninterested. The indifferent teacher just doesn't want to
impose on the students. As such, he/she often feels that class
preparation is not worth the effort. Things like field trips and special
projects are out of the question. This teacher simply won't take the
necessary preparation time. Sometimes, he/she will use the same
materials, year after year.
Creating A Climate For Learning
 Creating A Climate For Learning

"The most important action an effective teacher takes at the

beginning of the year is creating a climate for learning."

Mary Beth Blegan, former U.S. Department of Education teacher-in-residence.

 Creating A Climate For Learning

Fred Jones’ on Positive Classroom Discipline

"The most widespread management technique

at home and in the classroom is nag, nag, nag."

"It's also probably the least effective!"

 Creating A Climate For Learning

Howard Miller, Associate Professor of Education at Lincoln

University (Jefferson City, Missouri) suggests 12 steps teachers can take
at the beginning of the year to promote effective classroom
management.
 Creating A Climate For Learning

1. Develop a set of written expectations you can live

with and enforce.
 Creating A Climate For Learning

2. Be consistent. Be consistent. Be consistent.

 Creating A Climate For Learning

3. Be patient with yourself and with your students.

 Creating A Climate For Learning

4. Make parents your allies. Call early and often. Use the word
"concerned." When communicating a concern, be specific
and descriptive.
 Creating A Climate For Learning

5. Don't talk too much. Use the first 15 minutes of class

for lectures or presentations, then get the students working.
 Creating A Climate For Learning

6. Break the class period into two or three different

activities. Be sure each activity segues smoothly
into the next.
 Creating A Climate For Learning

7. Begin at the very beginning of each class period and

end at the very end.
 Creating A Climate For Learning

8. Don't roll call. Take the roll with your seating chart
while students are working.
 Creating A Climate For Learning

9. Keep all students actively involved. For example, while a

student does a presentation, involve the other students in
evaluating it.
 Creating A Climate For Learning

10. Discipline individual students quietly and privately.

Never engage in a disciplinary conversation across the room.
 Creating A Climate For Learning

11. Keep your sense of perspective and your sense of humor.

 Creating A Climate For Learning

12. Know when to ask for help.

Creating A Climate For Learning

LET’S MAKE A PACT

 Creating A Climate For Learning

John Sipp, a Title 1 Specialist at Rocky Heights Elementary School in

Hermiston, Oregon, says:
Rules are most effective when teachers, parents, and students are
equally committed to upholding them. At the start of each school
year, a compact spelling out their specific responsibilities is signed by
each of the parties involved. The text of the compact follows.
 Creating A Climate For Learning
As a parent/guardian, I will:
 Show respect and support for my child, the teachers, and the school.
 Support the school's discipline policy.
 Provide a quiet, well-lit place for study and supervise the completion of
homework.
 Attend parent-teacher conferences.
 Talk with my child each day about his or her school activities.
 Monitor my child's TV viewing.
 Assist with at least one school or classroom activity.
 Read with my child for at least 10 minutes each day and let my child see
me read.
 Creating A Climate For Learning
As a student, I will:
 Always try to do my best work.
 Be kind and helpful to my classmates.
 Show respect for myself, my school, and other people.
 Obey classroom, school, and bus rules.
 Show respect for property by not stealing or vandalizing.
 Come to school prepared with my homework and my supplies.
 Believe that I can and will learn.
 Spend at least 15 minutes each day studying or reading at home.
 Talk with my parents each day about my school activities.
 Creating A Climate For Learning
As a teacher, I will:
 Show respect for each child and for his or her family.
 Make efficient use of learning time.
 Provide a safe and comfortable environment that's conducive to learning.
 Help each child grow to his or her fullest potential.
 Provide meaningful and appropriate homework activities.
 Provide necessary assistance to parents so they can help with assignments.
 Enforce school and classroom rules fairly and consistently.
 Supply students and parents with clear evaluations of progress and
achievement.
 Use special activities in the classroom to make learning enjoyable.
 Demonstrate professional behavior and a positive attitude.
 Creating A Climate For Learning
Now, hand in hand, we will work together to carry out this
contract.

Signed:
______________________________      _______________
Parent signature/date

______________________________      _______________

Student signature/date

______________________________     _______________
Teacher signature/date
 Creating A Climate For Learning

For your Workshop.

* Draft your own Classroom

Policies
COURSE GUIDELINES AND STANDARDS
Creating A Climate For Learning

Classroom Discipline Matters

 Creating A Climate For Learning

Here are eleven techniques that you can use

in your classroom that will help you achieve
effective group management and control.
Adapted from "A Primer on Classroom Discipline: Principles Old and New" by Thomas R. McDaniel, Phi Delta Kappan, September 1986.
 Creating A Climate For Learning

1. Focusing

Be sure you have the attention of everyone in your classroom

before you start your lesson. Don’t attempt to teach over the chatter
of students who are not paying attention.
 Creating A Climate For Learning

2. Direct Instruction

Uncertainty increases the level of excitement in the classroom.

The technique of direct instruction is to begin each class by telling
the students exactly what will be happening. The teacher outlines
what he and the students will be doing this period. He may set time
limits for some tasks.
 Creating A Climate For Learning

3. Monitoring

The key to this principle is to circulate. Get up and get

around the room. While your students are working, make the
rounds. Check on their progress.

Slowly shift from being the ‘sage on stage’

to a ‘guide by the side.’
 Creating A Climate For Learning

4. Modeling

McDaniel tells us of a saying that goes “Values are caught, not

taught.” Teachers who are courteous, prompt, enthusiastic, in
control, patient and organized provide examples for their students
through their own behavior. The “do as I say, not as I do” teachers
send mixed messages that confuse students and invite
misbehavior.
 Creating A Climate For Learning

5. Non-Verbal Cuing

A standard item in the classroom of the 1950’s was the clerk’s bell.
A shiny nickelbell sat on the teacher’s desk. With one tap of the
button on top he had everyone’s attention. Teachers have shown a lot
of ingenuity over the years in making use of non-verbal cues in the
classroom. Some flip light switches. Others keep clickers in their
pockets.
 Creating A Climate For Learning

6. Environmental Control

A classroom can be a warm cheery place. Students enjoy an

environment that changes periodically. Study centers with pictures
and color invite enthusiasm for your subject.
 Creating A Climate For Learning
7. Low-Profile Intervention

Most students are sent to the principal’s office as a result of

confrontational escalation. The teacher has called them on a
lesser offense, but in the moments that follow, the student and
the teacher are swept up in a verbal maelstrom. Much of this
can be avoided when the teacher’s intervention is quiet and
calm.
 Creating A Climate For Learning

8. Assertive Discipline

This is traditional limit setting authoritarianism. When executed

as presented by Lee Canter (who has made this form a discipline
one of the most widely known and practiced) it will include a
good mix of praise. This is high profile discipline. The teacher is
the boss and no child has the right to interfere with the learning
of any student. Clear rules are laid out and consistently
enforced.
 Creating A Climate For Learning

9.  Assertive I-Messages

A component of Assertive Discipline, these I-Messages are

statements that the teacher uses when confronting a student
who is misbehaving. They are intended to be clear descriptions of
what the student is suppose to do. The teacher who makes good
use of this technique will focus the child’s attention first and
foremost on the behavior he wants, not on the misbehavior. “I
want you to...” or “I need you to...” or “I expect you to...”
 Creating A Climate For Learning

10. Humanistic I-Messages

These I-messages are expressions of our feelings. Thomas

Gordon, creator of Teacher Effectiveness Training (TET), tells us to
structure these messages in three parts. First, include a
description of the child’s behavior. “When you talk while I talk...”
Second, relate the effect this behavior has on the teacher. “… I
have to stop my teaching...” And third, let the student know the
feeling that it generates in the teacher. “...which frustrates me.”
 Creating A Climate For Learning

11. Positive Discipline

Use classroom rules that describe the behaviors you want

instead of listing things the students cannot do. Instead of “no-
running in the room,” use “move through the building in an
orderly manner.” Instead of “no fighting,” use “settle conflicts
appropriately.” Instead of “no gum chewing,” use “leave gum at
home.”
Creating A Climate For Learning

ABCs for the GREENHORNS

in the SERVICE
 Creating A Climate For Learning

Admit your mistakes -- and learn from them.

Creating A Climate For Learning

Be firm but flexible.

Creating A Climate For Learning

Communicate with parents.

 Creating A Climate For Learning

Develop a homework policy -- and stick to it.

 Creating A Climate For Learning

Empower your students; don't just lecture to them.

 Creating A Climate For Learning

Find time to attend after-school events.

 Creating A Climate For Learning

Get to know all the teachers in your school and

make friends with the cooks, custodians, aides, and
secretaries.
 Creating A Climate For Learning

Have the courage to try something else if what

you're doing isn't working.
 Creating A Climate For Learning

Institute a clear discipline policy -- and enforce it

consistently.
 Creating A Climate For Learning

Just listen -- both to what the kids are saying and to

what they're not saying.
Creating A Climate For Learning

Keep a journal.
 Creating A Climate For Learning

Learn your school's policies and procedures.

 Creating A Climate For Learning

Model desired attitudes and behavior.

 Creating A Climate For Learning

Non carborundum ignorami. (Don't let the imbeciles

wear you down.)
Creating A Climate For Learning

Overplan.
Creating A Climate For Learning

Prepare interesting lessons.

 Creating A Climate For Learning

Quit worrying and just do your best.

 Creating A Climate For Learning

Remember that you teach students first, then you

teach whatever academic discipline you learned.
Creating A Climate For Learning

Stay alert.
Creating A Climate For Learning

Take pictures.
 Creating A Climate For Learning

Understand that the learning process involves

everyone -- teachers, students, colleagues, and
parents -- and get everyone involved.
 Creating A Climate For Learning

Volunteer to share projects and ideas, and don't be

afraid to ask others to share their ideas with you.
Creating A Climate For Learning

Work within your limits.

 Creating A Climate For Learning

Xpect the unexpected -- and plan for it!

Creating A Climate For Learning

Yell if you need support.

 Creating A Climate For Learning

Zero in on your strengths, not your weaknesses.

(Remember -- nobody's perfect!)
 Creating A Climate For Learning

Finally, keep in mind the words of Philadelphia

teacher Lew Clark: "Have a blast! You are about to
begin a remarkable adventure."
The best and the finest managers on earth are
neither born nor made; they are those who
consecrate themselves – mind and body – to
become TEACHERS.
The best and the finest places in heaven are reserved for those
who, in times of great intellectual and moral crisis, choose to
maintain their resolve as teachers.
Teaching is a work of heART.