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exhibit is signal continuity and momentum during a lesson. As we noted earlier, signals are all the teacher’s
statements and other signs (e.g., lists on the board) that tell the students what is happening in the lesson. A
list of the day’s activities on the board provides one kind of signal to students about what the day’s tasks
will be. Teachers also provide clear signals about the learning events of the day when they introduce the
lesson to the class, explain the goals of the lesson, announce that they will move to a new phase of the
lesson, give directions for activities, and explain how the different parts of the lesson are related to each
other (or ask students to tell how the different parts of the lesson are related to each other).
Signal continuity and momentum refers to the ability to teach well–prepared and well–paced
lessons that keep students’ attention focused on the lesson and provide continuous academic signals that are
more compelling than competing distractions. To put it simply, signal continuity and momentum are about
the teacher’s ability to maintain the flow of the lesson. The lesson moves along at a good pace—not so fast
that the students lose track of what they are learning but not so slow that students can afford to stop paying
attention to the lesson. The teacher also avoids any pauses in the lesson that invite students to start talking
among themselves or otherwise misbehave. The most basic way teachers can maintain signal continuity and
momentum is to make sure they are well prepared and that all the necessary materials for every lesson are
organized before the day begins. We examine two examples below.
Ɣ At the end of each day, Jocelyn (a high school psychology teacher) writes the next day’s schedule on the
board, along with the materials needed (e.g., textbook, a group work handout, etc.) This allows her
students, as they enter the room, to immediately have an idea of how the day is organized. Jocelyn finds
the schedule on the board especially helpful between lesson activities. As she finishes one activity, her
students know to look at the board and see what is next and what materials they need to take out,
without further direction from Jocelyn. This strategy keeps the instructional flow between activities.
Ɣ Tyrone (a fourth-grade teacher) arrives at school an hour early each morning. Once in his classroom,
he reviews his day’s lesson plans, paying careful attention to what materials he needs for the entire day.
Before the students arrive, he organizes all of the day’s materials on his front table in the order they are
needed for the day. This strategy allows Tyrone to maintain the flow from one lesson to the next
because he doesn’t lose the classes’ attention as he locates the materials for the next lesson.
Variety and challenge in academic assignments. Effective classroom managers also plan for
variety and challenge within academic assignments so that students are actively engaged throughout
lessons. We discussed the importance of variety and challenge in Chapter 10. The active engagement that
arises from variety and appropriate challenge leads to fewer management problems.
Teaching students to regulate their own behavior. In addition to Kounin’s methods for
preventing misbehavior, educators in recent years have focused on another method of preventing behavior
problems: teaching students to regulate their own behavior (McCaslin et al., 2006; Soodak & McCarthy,
2006). This idea is directly related to our discussion in Chapter 6 about self-regulated learning. Just as
students can learn to regulate their learning processes, they can learn to control their behavior. Students can
learn to set goals about behavior (e.g., “I’m going to focus on this lesson without irrelevant chit chat to my
friends”), monitor their behavior (e.g., “Am I meeting my goal so far?”), and use strategies to help them
achieve their goals (e.g., the student learns to say “Focus!” whenever her attention is straying). As we
learned, setting goals, monitoring progress toward goals, and selecting appropriate strategies are at the
heart of self-regulated learning.
One way to help students learn to regulate their behavior is to teach them how to resolve conflicts
on their own. An increasing number of schools are teaching students methods of conflict resolution. One
method of conflict resolution is found in Figure 11.5.
As we noted earlier, when helping students learn to regulate their own behavior, it is important for
teachers to make sure that students understand the reasons for the rules and procedures of the class.
Students will be more willing to regulate their behavior if they understand that there are sensible reasons
for doing so. Thus, teachers should make sure that students understand why it is important to follow the