Readings3,4,6

Mike H

Reading 3 sees Motivation as the key to Classroom Relations and Management, reading 4 sees being proactive as being crucial while reading 6 sees assertive and empathetic communication as the basis of good relationships and discipline. From your perspective assess the approach that you think is most relevant for you in relating to and managing your class.Readings 5 and 7 seem to be missing!

Caroline Eaton | (172.16.17.91) | Friday, 25 May 2001 1:53:13 PM
I think that reading 3 is the most relvant for me as a teacher. Motivating my students to learn is fundamental to everything I do as a teacher. Knowing how and what stimulates and engages students is an integral part of my job. Deep understanding and the ability to transfer meaning to different contexts is essential to the task of teaching. An understanding of how the brain functions and learning is activated are the building blocks upon which the shape and form of the learning experience is realised. The concept of "Downshifting" and the factors which counteract it is very interseting. Students do need a variety of stimulating activites which take account of the different ways and forms of learning. I strongly believe that all five senses should be incorporated in the learning experience and all learning styles should be covered. As Campbell notes, students should be involved in their assessment and evaluation methods. They should have some degree of choice and input of what it is they will study and how they will study it. It is only when students have can take a measure of control of their learning, when they can see the bigger picture that most of them will take a more proactive role in the deeper learning process.

Lesley Thurston | (129.78.104.178) | Friday, 25 May 2001 4:57:07 PM
I believe nothing will be done in the classroom effectively (for example class discussions, practical work, student and teacher learning, homework etc) if the students and teacher are not motivated about what they are doing. I liked how the author in reading 3 said that the brain was meant for learning and it is only natural for students to want to learn. However, even if the natural thing is for students to want to learn new concepts and skills, they will not learn anything if they are not interested in what they are learning. I myself know that if there is no interest or motivation for me to learn, I do not pay attention and take very little away from the learning experience.

Jenny Latham | (10.0.73.173) | Sunday, 27 May 2001 9:58:38 AM
I consider that an integration of ALL three components (motivation, empathy and communication) is essential for effective teaching/learning outcomes. An emphasis on an assertive yet considerate approach will build a solid foundation of trust and confidence by the students. As Frank Land states "we establish our credibility with individual students and the class generally... students will compare your performance and commitment to their other learning experiences." As a teacher I must recognise the individual needs and aspirations of the group. This will lead to a good working relationship between the teacher and the pupil. An informed, stimulating lesson will help me move away from a teacher centred approach to one of a facilitator and mentor.Student ownership of the learning brings self-motivation and a sense of worth.(Campbell) When this is achieved classroom management and relations are inevitably strengthened.

M.Grace | (129.94.6.30) | Sunday, 27 May 2001 12:49:32 PM
If I had to pick one out of the three I would pick Motivation. IF you have students interested in what there learning then your half way to effective CRM. Bordom in class is a catalyst to bad behaviour. Most people studying in L.O.T.E would agree that motivation has its advantages and disavantages. LOTE Class is very interesting due to Oral, aural movement, games and free choice. The disadvantage is the noise that it can create within the class room.Yet it is controllable noise. As a language teacher I will be using what article 3 talks about to apply multi-ability therory within what I'm teaching. THe past 3 weeks I have been thinking well you can make learning a language fun but how on earth could you make a MATHS class fun???/ food for thought...

Jenny Layzell | (139.134.23.68) | Sunday, 27 May 2001 3:44:27 PM
All three sessions are vital to the establishment of good teaching techniques. I particularly liked Campbell's ideas of student's involvment in the learning process. They should be given a choice in assessment and evaluation . However, this will only come about when I am aware of the capabilities of my students and develop well thought out lesson plans. As Frank Lord states, "we establish our credibility with individual students and the class generally on the first day". Being aware of what I want to accomplish as a teacher will set the standard of the classroom. I liked what Campbell states at the end of article 3. "Classrooms must be stimulating places where the students is challenged not threatened"

K.Gard | (198.142.212.63) | Sunday, 27 May 2001 8:46:36 PM
I think that motivation is a vital part of teaching; keeping students interested by involving them in their own assessment and using different techniques and styles to 'reach' all parts of the brain is what it's all about. If you keep students motivated and interested, it will be a big help to avoiding CRM problems. However, motivation will not magically fix everything and there will probably still be students who are disruptive, have attitude problems etc. I think you also need to use other approaches- such as empathy and proactive techniques- in conjunction with increasing motivation to have truly effective CRM.

young h | (198.142.206.25) | Sunday, 27 May 2001 9:57:59 PM
that's hard choice. because not one is more important that others. they carry all equal value. but if i must, i would go with motivation. the order of teaching - learning starts with a motivation for both. CRM, i think, is better understood by. but i also want to contradict myself that this motivation does not magically appear without any foundation of good communication or discipline. in that sense empathy will also need to take part from the teachers. but self motviation, specially from teacher's side is the most crucial starting position i must say. take care

Emma Skoczylas | (139.134.23.68) | Sunday, 27 May 2001 10:02:23 PM
Despite obvious differences of opinion regarding CRM between the authors of the set readings, I could see myself applying each of these ideas to different situations. Motivation is pretty important from where I stand, which is fairly clear since I'm the evil person that brought up the now DELETED "B" (...oring) word in our first class. If students have no desire to learn, then there is a serious problem that needs to be addressed by the teacher -they can't do their job until it is. Humour me Mike, because I truly believe that if a teacher is constantly UNINTERESTING, that one cannot hold the students responsible for not reaching their full potential, let alone "drifting off" in classes. This future teacher intends to take action and do her utmost to make her English/History/Mythology/RE classes as exciting and enthralling as possible. If students still aren't motivated to learn from me, well I guess I'll have to think up some other earth-shattering idea to entice them to learn. Allowing students the opportunity to make choices, active decisions regarding what they learn might be a good start to motivate. I thought the "Scavenger Hunt" was quite a good idea for learning situations where there is no strict guidelines regarding what students need to learn (eg Sex Education). This would allow more able students to attempt a more difficult task, creative/artzy students the chance to show their skills etc. It also shows students that the teacher does understand that people are different and are not necessarily all going to enjoy the same activities. Choice for students also implies that their teacher(s) are willing to treat them like adults by placing a trust in them, rather than constantly exercising the authority that goes with tyrrany. The second reading was big on the idea of establishing credibility with students on the first day of class. I'd have to say that I agree, and to quote from a member of my study one group (-sorry, I forget whom) I draw attention to Neville Goodman's first lecture on the MTeach orientation day. He is one of few people that captured my FULL attention for an entire two hour block. I know that in years to come, if I think of Neville I'll remember that lecture and how interesting and inspiring it was. That is the kind of lesson I'd love to be able to give to even one of my first day classes -make the students have something they want to come back to. Also, this reading mentioned going through the course overall with the students, so that they know what will be expected of them, and so that they may ask any questions then. I think this is a great idea, sometimes when I selected a course at school, the description didn't tell me enough about the topics I'd be studying. I remember choosing an option called "Edible Experiments" for Home Science once, and never knowing what I was in for from one week to the next. As the reading noted, this gives enthusiastic students the opportunity to seek information prior to study of the particular unit. Sometimes I used to do this if a topic sounded particularly difficult. As far as being empathetic towards students, personally I think this is key to a good relationship with them. Thinking back to when I was a student, it always seemed that the teachers were from another planet. Many never seemed to be able to fathom that I felt differently to them, or some of the males in particular could not understand that sometimes girls just don't want to or even can't participate in PE. Letting students know that we can understand, that we'll try to accomodate their needs where possible has got to aid us in hopefully becoming allies. Being (reasonably) young, I hope that I can remember how I used to think as a student, and beat my pupils to the mark. As a student I used to appreciate teachers that could make lessons fun, that could have a joke, that would go out of their way for me (when it came to info related to my classes etc), and that let me know that they trusted me. A good teacher also admitted that sometimes they could be wrong. I am going to assume that a lot of students might look for these traits in me.

Matthew Louttit | (203.63.158.2) | Sunday, 27 May 2001 11:00:46 PM
From your perspective assess the approach you think is most relevant to you in relating to and managing your class. SESSION 3 (Campbell) Caine's 'brain shifts' as discussed in Campbell are to me a critical consideration for teachers. Our ability to lapse into states of narrowed or blunted awareness would be held to have more significance in a psychoanalytical or psychohistorical account of behaviour management than even Campbell recognises. The Freudian view would be that all people 'downshift' in order to enter a trance state or dissociate themselves from trauma (which in psychoanalytic thought can be a moderately distressing social experience, not only a serious injury to the body). This is a basic defence against threatening situations. Students 'downshift' to avoid embarrassment, to cope with feelings of inferiority or stupidity and to avoid boredom when there is no available escape from being bored. It does seem that if an escape in the form of some 'emotionally engaging, relevant, useful' (Campbell) task is available, students will prefer it to 'downshifting'. I have seen two bright fifth-grade students at the cram school take out a tiny chess set and solemnly begin to exchange moves while I was talking to the class. I left them to their game as it was clearly more rewarding for them intellectually than what I had to offer from the Victorian-era worksheet. I think dissociative behaviour is endemic to modern life and a particular hazard in institutional environments like schools. It is what makes us bump into people by accident on a crowded city pavement, over-use the internet and television and overeat, as well as 'zone out' when we are bored by lessons (or lectures). In a trance state our intelligence is shut down: this is the cost of the beneficial numbing effect the trance provides. I can recall an incident from my own schooling in which my reliance on dissociation caused me painful physical injury. We were sometimes assigned in PE to a game called 'bin ball', in which the aim of the game - played on a basketball court - is to strike other players with a volleyball. Players are removed from the court as they are struck with the ball. In this terrifying game it was common to be hit with enormous force by hurled volleyballs. My psychological defence against my own terror was to wander in a trance state through the play without attempting to strike at the opposing team or avoid 'enemy' shots. I could sometimes last out a game in this way, and avoid feeling anything. But inevitably I was struck a massive, excruciating blow - to the face. The boy who had flung this ball was sorry, but not too sorry. He sensed that I had chosen a suicidal behaviour and wasn't 'in my right mind'. How true this was. To Campbell's list of what contributes to 'downshifting' in classroom settings I would add the item 'students in fear of physical injury during lesson'. Intelligence is quite a fragile thing - genetically it's a new and uncertain development - and can be suppressed by environmental stress surprisingly easily. The principle I can take from this article into my own classrooms is that no-one can learn efficiently in a state of fear or threat. I need to take care to ensure that I am not unwittingly creating an atmosphere of tension or anxiety in the classroom. SESSION 4 (Land) Land's most interesting advice is to supply students with 'course outcomes.' I saw this being done at one of the observation schools earlier in the year. The teacher of a Year 12 Ancient History class, herself a recent graduate of the MTeach, had added the 'outcomes' from the syllabus documents for that subject to an assignment sheet. These were woolly in the syllabus and remained woolly on the assignment sheet. The practical use this information is to students depends on the language in which the outcomes are framed. Often, at least in NSW, the language of 'course outcomes' is woolly and nebulous. I can see how the bureaucratised language of the Department leads many teachers to dismiss its publications as 'administrivia'. Campbell in Session 3 provides a strong counter to 'outcome-itis' with her lists of activity formats and the template for the 'Scavenger Hunt'. I can visualise these activities and test them for their suitability to my material. The MTeach coursework would be baffling without, at minimum, evaluation criteria for assignments and a view of its 4 'phases'. Many high school students don't even get that much. As a student my sense of the general structure of the syllabus in, say mathematics, was dim and discontinuous. It was never entirely clear to me how or why mathematical principles were cumulative and logically related to one another, or where they were going to take us as we moved through high school. We were prepared for examinations with drills on material that would be found in the exams. A course outline along with some grounding in the logical interrelatedness of mathematical principles might have lead me to give up learning in that subject less quickly. I can see advising my students of the outcomes for their course as being helpful to them - for example, as a point of reference for the design of their assignments and essays - if I take the trouble to express the outcomes in specific and practical language suited to the students' level of undersanding. This is (comparatively) less relevant than the more basic knowledge about brain states discussed in Campbell. SESSION 6 (Andoni) Andoni's article seems the least organised, a portmanteau of various management strategies and theories of human behaviour. I was attracted to his consideration of ethics in the classroom. To Andoni our 'ethics' are our 'assumptions as to how people should behave'. This is not what I think ethics means at all. Ethics is the science of making choices to maximise the fulfilment of the basic needs (eg, as Glasser defines them) of all living beings who are capable of suffering. There is too much talk about 'ethics' that really means morals, or fact-free evaluations whose roots lie in fact-free systems of belief. I suggest Nietzsche was not before his time in seeking a treatment of major human problems that lay 'beyond good and evil', and 100 years is surely time enough to let facts and consideration of consequences begin to structure our debates about ethics. Interestingly Andoni agrees with Campbell that it is not helpful to 'reason with an emotionally aroused student'. This is probably because a student in this state has shut down his intelligence so as to dissociate himself from the threat he is facing (see Session 3). The puzzle for the teacher is to work out what kind of threat to his or her saftey the student believes is present. (Dreikurs suggests questioning the student and closely watching his or her inadvertent reactions, such as smiling or a 'gleam in the eye'.) The commonsense virtuousness of reciprocity and social-contract behaviour is not food for much useful ethical discussion about classroom management. It intrigues me that lists of 'our rights and responsibilities in this school' are often seen as platitudinous and not much practical help. Perhaps they gloss over the reality of classroom power struggles and the need for a sense of power. However, a teacher who followed all of Andoni's tips, suggestions and nostrums could be assured of success because of their pragmatic appeal to direct experience. His thinking doesn't reduce to a simple theoretical framework in the same way Driekurs' or Glasser's ideas do, and I come away from this article with an impression of having rummaged through an overstuffed briefcase - unsure whether I've got a grip on the entire contents. In the emotionally arousing context of a class I would probably fall back on the (conceptually) simplest management strategy.

Roslyn Shailer | (129.78.64.5) | Sunday, 27 May 2001 11:28:10 PM
I think that establishing credibility is really important, especially as a beginning teacher. The classroom management strategies in reading #6 are related to this gaining of credibility - they provide useful methods for handling situations, preventing disruption and establishing positive classroom interaction. But I think that motivation is the big issue of the three - as reading 3 said (p16), classroom misbehaviour can often result from lack of motivation, in what is termed "downshifting". In an engaging lesson in which students are eager to participate and feel that the activity is worthwhile or meaningful, disruptive behaviour is less likely to occur. If students can be motivated to learn, behaviour management becomes less of an issue.

Kat H | (203.54.211.39) | Sunday, 27 May 2001 11:33:25 PM
Definately motivation, without it the student will never learn, they will just shut down. They may put on a face of interest, so as to not be reprimanded for 'not paying attention' but they will never successfully learn (or 'deep learn') anything unless they want to. Certainly the other things come into play in any classroom, but I feel if the kids want to learn they will generally co-operate.

MIchael Hammonds | (203.27.69.94) | Sunday, 27 May 2001 11:40:01 PM
Although I can see the obvious importance in teacher instructions being proactive rather than reactive I think this aspect of teaching is eclipsed in signicance by the other two features. Good communication in the classroom is of great importance and one study I have recently read showed that both educators and students of all levels of success place good teacher/student relations at the top of a list of important features in a good classroom environment. However, I am inclined to place motivation as dealt with in session 3 as the most relevant teaching approach in my preconceived notion of a classroom. To learn successfully motivation is imperative thus its presence or absince is fundamental to the degree of success one will have in achieving desired objectives and outcomes. I agree with the writer of session 3 in assigning a high degree of importance to the role of students in the design of their own learning experiences and potentially their own assessment.

Allison Throwden | (129.78.104.224) | Monday, 28 May 2001 9:06:49 AM
I think that the reading most relevant to my teaching will be reading number 3. I believe that if students are interested in what they are learning then the class will behave well and discipline problems will be kept to a minimum. In my opinion, most children misbehave when they are bored. MOtivation is the key to good classroom management, and reading three recognises the importance of this factor.

Andrei Laptev | (129.78.64.5) | Monday, 28 May 2001 9:07:22 AM
For me the most important way of managing a class has been to keep the kids occupied. This means planning the lesson in such a way that the students have less chance of getting bored. I rely on standing out the front and attempting to entertain the group (or at least keep them from falling asleep). i like to combine the talk with relevant activities so the kids aren't just being talked at.

Reema Hozeiran | (172.16.17.91) | Monday, 4 June 2001 10:36:41 AM
I believe that all the above three approaches are important and are completing each other. I agree with author of SESSION 4/ we establish our credibility with individual students & class on the first day. The impression we create on this first day will either motivate the students to the subject or objected. I also agree with author of SESSION 6/ Every teacher will be facing misbehaved students, and to successfully manage this inappropriate classroom behavior we as teachers should have assertive & empathic communication skills. But I believe that motivating students to learn is vital because I find the aim from above two approaches is to find ways to motivate students to learn. Teaching process is about how to motivate students to learn because students will not learn if they are not interested with what they are learning.

Reema Hozeiran | (172.16.17.91) | Monday, 4 June 2001 10:43:12 AM
I believe that all the above three approaches are important and are completing each other. I agree with author of SESSION 4/ we establish our credibility with individual students & class on the first day. The impression we create on this first day will either motivate the students to the subject or objected. I also agree with author of SESSION 6/ Every teacher will be facing misbehaved students, and to successfully manage this inappropriate classroom behavior we as teachers should have assertive & empathic communication skills. But I believe that motivating students to learn is vital because I find the aim from above two approaches is to find ways to motivate students to learn. Teaching process is about how to motivate students to learn because students will not learn if they are not interested with what they are learning.

Yuki Tagana | (202.7.209.121) | Monday, 4 June 2001 5:31:25 PM
I think that all three are equally important in dealing with different aspects of CRM. Getting off to a good start on the 1st day (session 4) is very relevant for us as we'll soon be on our 1st prac!! I think this is extremely important because no matter how good your lesson plan is, it would be hard to make students motivated without being able to establish yourself positively on the 1st meeting with them. Motivating students (session 3) is also very important and it is true that many students are 'downshifted' (I was one of them) because most of the typical classroom activities do not engage students and are irrelevant. If we can keep them interested and on-task, management problems should be minimised. Session 6 is very useful to understand and deal with disruptive behaviour already occcuring. I believe in empathetic and positive attitude when dealing with disruptive students rather than seeing them as 'problems'.

Steph Lawson | (210.50.30.3) | Tuesday, 5 June 2001 3:46:32 PM
Like quite a few of the responses above, I also believe that motivation is most relevant to me in relating to and managing my class. The other two readings made some really valuable points, but if I had to choose one, it would be Reading 3. I found this whole concept of 'downshifting' really interesting, and can see that it could be a huge problem in the classroom if the teacher fails to motivate his/her students, and doesn't provide them with the freedom to direct their own learning. I totally agree with the comment made above about language teaching. In our language classes, we have learnt how to teach the students using a wide variety of games. If the students are enjoying themselves, then hopefully they will be motivated to learn, and misbehaviour in the classroom won't be an issue. And the best thing about using games in your teaching strategy is that while the students are 'playing', they don't think they are doing any work, when the reality of it is, they are probably learning alot more than they would if the lessons were simply chalk and talk.

herlina massing | (10.1.37.30) | Monday, 11 June 2001 5:03:29 PM
When I was in High School I had difficulties with math. I had a fail in the beginning of the year, then a pass and then a barely satisfactory later on. I was not very please with my marks. However my math teacher recommend me by saying how happy she was to see me made some progress and she emphasized to me that it is not the mark that was important but how much progress you have made in knowledge was. I think I could adopt that wisdom in my teaching approach. I am sure that I will make mistakes in my first year of class management but I should not be too harsh on my self by comparing my achievement with other teachers who have more experiences than me. Beginning teachers sometimes lose sight of their success and forget that they are making good progress in their teaching approach because they are too focus too get their teaching strategies right at once. Some one said that teaching is the most powerful learning experience we can ever have and it is like learning to ride a bike you can’t get it right at the first go. But it will come with a lot of practice and time. I think it is importance for teachers to sometimes stand back and see the bigger picture of their positive contributions and their own progress rather than becoming too bog down in contemplating their mistakes, failures, and blunders. So, it is important for me to keep on learning from my mistakes and being reflective of my teaching practice in this changing world. Some of my other approaches are : to do my best, applied the things I learned from this Mteach course, keep on learning to develop my approach

Helena Ng | (203.109.250.98) | Wednesday, 13 June 2001 2:16:37 PM
I believe a good mixture of all three approaches would greatly improve my personal teaching skills. Teachers need to be motivators, activators and empathisers all at once. I don’t think there is only ONE way we can go about teaching. For myself I will be more aware of preventing “downshifting” in my classroom by providing variety, activities that interest the students, opportunities to display creativity and student centred activities. I am also very aware that the very first lesson I take with any class will be crucial in establishing credibility as a classroom teacher. I will need to know the culture and rules of the school and be genuinely interested in the students’ needs as learners. As for stress, I’ll handle that when it comes. Generally I am not a very stressful person, perhaps teaching will teach me otherwise!

Antonio Knezevic | (129.78.64.5) | Thursday, 14 June 2001 1:46:19 PM
There is a lot to be said to these topics, but not to bore everyone as most teachers do I will try to simply expalin what I got from the readings. All the info in these readings are too much in my view. They dwell too much on common ground and things that are very logic. In my learning experience at school I didnt even relise that the teachers were employing any critical information about classroom management. It was very logic and what we learn in the M.Teach we will use only in limitations. I mean how do these readings convey situations ??? every situation is different and we must be prepared for what comes, as a result our reactions will not essentially depend on theory but on our feelings. For example looking at session 6 (Andoni), this guy basically tells us that ethics are very important in the classroom, I agree but to what extent will the teacher be willing to implement these principals ?. Session 4 dwells on outcome based learning and giving students outcomes is the duty of the teacher. I agree with this but to what extent the students learn from these outcomes is once again a personal thing. In my view Dreikurs has said the most in all these three articles (session3) and his principals go a long way in explaining student behaviour and the resulting consequences.

Mina Kitsos | (129.78.64.5) | Thursday, 14 June 2001 1:59:07 PM
I believe that motivation is one major key to succesfully teaching a class of students. I find to this day that if i am not motivated in class i will tune out and focus on a drawing on a wall or simply start doodling in my book. I do not want my students to be missing out on something important because i was boring them. I don't think it will be hard for me to motivate my students because as an art teacher i believe art is fun and students want to get messy and explore paint etc..It's not like maths or science where you can get answers wrong, there are no right or wrong answers in art and that's the beauty of it. Motivation is an important factor in controlling the class. By not motivating the class, chatter can easily break out and the room will soon fill with loud inappropriate discussions which will cause an off balance in the lesson. Basically a lesson plan filled with excitement may keep the students awake and focused. As teachers we too should be motivated by what we are teaching. We cannot teach and expect students to enjoy what we are teaching if we ourselves are showing no interest.

Karl Enye | (202.129.65.50) | Saturday, 4 August 2001 10:26:17 AM
I do understand the whole concept of CRM. And believe that in total students will respond well if involved in facets of their work. Working towards a balance between teacher / student relationships should work well with CRM.