Chapter 11 page 245
Response: Sarah has failed to follow any of the recommendations for organizing lessons discussed
in this section and in earlier sections, as well.
First, Sarah evidently has not taught her students to follow any morning routine. She does not
provide students with a “Do Now” or any other activity to focus their attention when they come into the
room. They have not learned to follow a regular series of steps when they enter the room (e.g., take
coats off right away, get any needed materials, and sit down). Moreover, Sarah is not monitoring the
students’ behavior as they enter the room. She should be walking among the students, greeting them
warmly, reminding them of the morning routine if needed. Instead, she is undertaking a far-too-late
review of her lesson plans.
Sarah has obviously failed to have the day’s materials ready to go. Even worse, she has
obviously not carefully planned her math lessons prior to the start of the day. If she only just realized
that she needs math flashcards, she obviously failed to even read her lesson plans through before the
day, let alone review her plans carefully so that she will know them thoroughly. If her first lesson is any
indication of her general behavior, she is probably woefully unprepared for the entire day.
Sarah does not tell her students what the goal of the lesson is or how the instruction will help
them achieve their goals. She just launches into the lesson without explaining its purpose. There are no
signals giving meaningful instructional continuity to the morning’s activities. Sarah’s questions appear
to be at a low level. She doesn’t ask questions that get at students’ understanding of fractions. Even
though Joan probably does not understand, she does not try to help Joan understand the meaning of
the fractions; she instead gives a blatant hint (“I ate two pieces, and the cake is divided into fifths”) so
that Joan can say the right words ( “two fifths”) to answer the question, even though Joan gives no
evidence of understanding what this means or why it is the right answer. Sarah seems to be content if
her students parrot the correct answer, whether they understand it or not.
You may think that Sarah’s lack of preparation must be very uncommon, but I have
repeatedly encountered teachers who have not reviewed their lesson plans thoroughly (or at all)
before their lessons begin. This is a recipe for horrible instruction and for disasters in classroom
management.
PREVENTING AND RESPONDING TO BEHAVIOR PROBLEMSThe fifth and final component of effective classroom management is discipline, which we define as
preventing and responding to behavior problems. The four components of classroom management that
we have discussed to this point are all designed to prevent misbehavior. This fifth component is the only
component of the classroom management model that includes both preventive teaching strategies (strategies
design to keep misbehavior from happening in the first place) and responsive teaching strategies (strategies
that respond to misbehaviors after they occur).
Preventing Behavior Problems
In a classic study that still provides the foundation for current thinking about preventing discipline
problems (Doyle, 2006; Emmer & Gerwels, 2006), educational psychologist Jacob Kounin (1970) studied
what effective and ineffective classroom managers did as they were teaching in their classrooms. He found
that effective classroom managers and ineffective classroom managers did not differ substantially in their
responses to misbehavior. However, they differed significantly in the strategies they used to prevent
misbehavior. Kounin discovered that effective classroom managers display four key behaviors to prevent
misbehavior: withitness, overlapping, signal continuity and momentum, and variety and challenge within
lessons. We discuss each of these below.