Lauren-2011

//Include an APA citation, a summary, and a reaction for each article. DELETE THESE INSTRUCTIONS WHEN DONE//
 * Research Question: How Teacher Excellence is Affected by Classroom Discipline**
 * Author: Lauren Schuessler**

Editorial:

Ahuja, Anupam, Chinara Djumagulova, Els Heijnen, Vivian Heung, and Terje Magnussønn Watterdal. "IDP Norway - EENET Asia: Issue 3 - Editorial: Reflections on Effective Teaching and Classroom Management." //IDP Norway//. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2011. .

Summary: This article is all about teacher effectiveness and touches upon how teachers can discipline and reward the students in such a way as to increase the success of the classroom learning and relationships between student and teacher. Classroom behavior and outcomes are directly correlated to the quality of teaching. Teachers need to be aware of the backgrounds of the students, how they adjust, and how best they learn. Teachers must understand social and family background because these could be factors that severely influence misbehavior or "failure." Teachers must be able to reflect and notice how and if the teaching methods they are using, are working best for the students. Timing of classroom activities can reduce discipline problems. Teachers tend to point out students' deficiencies more often than the improvements or efforts. Teachers need to be aware of this. The students labeled as slow learners, low achievers, discipline problems are often always treated as such, even after improvement. Teachers should be sure to ask for feedback from students in order to increase fairness and curiosity. With discipline, teachers must make sure that the child knows that the behavior is unacceptable, not the child itself. Disciplinary techniques will be ineffective because they do not promote self discipline or responsibility for the child to understand their actions were wrong. Instead, values and social skills should be taught and modeled. The children will practice responsibility,which includes making mistakes.

Reaction: I thought this article was very informative. It gave so much information about varying aspects of being an effective teacher. Each point about what teachers need to make sure to pay extra attention to, and what teachers do wrong is spot on, yet many teachers pass by these important aspects. I really liked how they highlighted student teacher relationships as the main way to have an effective classroom. I believe that rather than testing, teacher effectiveness should be measured on the relationship between the student and teacher. If the teacher really makes an effort to get to know the student and how they learn, the student is so much more likely to develop curiosity and learn to love learning. I am not sure if i agree with the discipline stance they took however. The article says that discipline will not produce anything effective, but I think without discipline, the classroom will just get way too crazy and the students might not develop any real respect for the teacher. I believe that some discipline, besides teaching values, is needed to establish respect for the teacher, and to maintain a good learning and classroom environment.Rhode Island teachers, in addition to all teachers, need to establish this in order to be effective. This can really help RI reform.

Magazine:

SchoolBook. "Time to Repeal the Cellphone Ban, Students Say – SchoolBook." //The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia//. N.p., 2 Nov. 2011. Web. 29 Nov. 2011. .

Summary: This article is about the city's ban on cellphones in school. This article highlights the students' opinions of this new ban. The first article, uses the idea that the cellphones are needed for safety. Even the parents are opposing this rule because they are worried about the safety of their children and need to be in contact with them to make sure that they are safe. This article says that schools should handle the misuse of cellphones, by just confiscating them if they are used in class. Additionally, this article highlights the good uses of cellphones in school, such as timers, polls, etc. The next article claims that the rule of no cellphones is outdated and ineffective. They cite Mayor Bloomberg as telling parents to buy cellphones for their children for safety. They also state that the teachers could just be more "proactive" and enforce rules about cellphone use in class. The next article says that the rule is only creating criminals, the students will bring in their cellphones whether there is a rule or not. It claims that lives are being put on stake because this rule (safety). It also says that the rule is discriminatory because it is only being enforced in schools with mostly hispanic and black kids. They think that a compromise needs to be met. In the last article, the author shares that she thinks her cellphone is incredibly useful for studying during free periods, she can use the internet to look up facts. She also believes that the actions of a few, shouldn't result in the punishment of everyone else.

Reaction: I agree with all of these articles. This may be because I am close to their age, but from the second I read that there was going to be a ban of phones in schools, I thought to myself that that rule will never work. No matter how much the department of education tries to enforce this rule and stop children from bringing their phones to school, the kids will always win. It makes kids more likely to rebel, when they have to hide something in school. I have had experiences just like this before and once the rule was enforced, the kids wanted to break the rule so much more. Teenagers will always find a way to get around a rule. I also think that the safety reason is the most important reason to have a phone. NYC is a dangerous place, it is essential to have a way out of the danger. However, phones are the most up and coming behavior problem in schools. It is essential for the teachers to decide an effective way to discipline the kids and their phone behavior. This article gives suggestions that teachers be more proactive at the enforcement of no phone //DURING CLASS// rules. I think a very good way of discipling the kids with phones, is letting them know that you are okay with them texting before and after class, but if you see them texting during your class, you will either take away points, take away the phone, or even read the text message aloud. These strategies establish a friendly environment, but also warn the students that phone are not tolerated during class time.

Scholarly Journal:

Sayeski, Kristen, and Monica Brown. "Developing a Classroom Management Plan Using a Tiered Approach." Teaching exception children 44 (2011): 8-15. Print.

Summary: This article is all about using a certain approach to control behavior in the classroom. The article gives strategies for both regular and special education. Before teachers can begin to implement the tiered approach, they must evaluate and detect the problems already existing. Specific strategies that are very significant as to ridding the behavior problems in classrooms are as follows: high teacher expectations, high levels of student engagement in stimulating instruction, clearly communicated rules and norms, established routines and procedures, positive student teacher rapport, and efficient use of classroom time. Teachers should evaluate their own instructional practices, rules and procedures and overall classroom climate. The first tier is preventative classroom management. Response cards, choral responding, and peer tutoring increase student engagement. The second tier is first line interventions. This basically means that when discouraged behaviors start appearing in children, the teacher must provide more support for the student. Surface management techniques deal with minor behavioral infractions. Examples: planned ignoring, signal interference, and proximity, touch control and rewards. Reinforcement systems are also used with the second tier. These provide consistent consequences to bad behavior. The last tier is intensive, individualized interventions. This looks deep into why the student is misbehaving and how we can help him/her become more well behaved. In summary, the tiers are just used as a structure for behavioral interventions.

Reaction: I thought this article was very informative. It provided a great amount of information about disciplining students. It gave many examples for each tier and each piece of evidence made perfect sense. I especially liked the chart from tier two, with the surface management techniques. It was so interesting to read the reactions that the children usually have to these teacher strategies. I also thought the section about rewards as a strategy was very interesting. It said that rewards were only effective if used with certain conditions. It is important not to use them consistently because that disrupts the classroom productivity. They said it was best to use rewards randomly. That makes a lot of sense. If students always expect rewards, they will eventually stop caring about getting the prize, and their work will often slack. Surprising the children will work well, because then they will be so motivated for this unique reward, and they will work extra hard. The three tiered approach cited in this article is extremely informative and I am glad that I read all about the different ways of disciplining in order to get the best result in all classrooms. I will definitely incorporate all these aspects in my classroom and I am so glad that I learned about these teacher responsibilities in advance.

Summary Article:

Losen, Daniel. "State Legislative Recommendations to Promote Fair and Effective School Discipline." NEPC Discipline Resource Sheet. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2011. <www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED524712.pdf

Summary: This article is about ways to improve state legislation regarding testing and evaluations of teacher. Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) is a particularly effective program and ensures training in behavioral and teaching management. The first recommendation to improving state legislations is to "Strengthen support and training for teacher to improve classroom and behavioral management." Teaching staff should receive technical assistance on behavior management and positive behavior supports. Training should be added to state certification requirements. The second recommendation is that annual reporting should include all sorts of disciplinary actions taken, their frequency and duration. Type of offense should also be included. All of this information should be reported by the school, district and state level and divided up by race, gender, disability status, ELL status and socioeconomic status. The last recommendation is to "align discipline policy with academic achievement goals by helping schools reduce high suspension rates." This recommends that when a certain district exceeds the normal amount of suspensions, support should be atomically triggered. Also, all low performing schools and schools with higher suspension rates than the state average should be required to adopt research based behavioral supports.

Reaction: I thought this summary article was very interesting. Instead of just complaining about the faults of the state legislation concerning low performing schools and teacher evaluations, it gave practical and comprehensive suggestions of ways to improve this legislation. I personally think that they way of only judging schools on testing is so ridiculous and unfair so I really liked the three recommendations. I also thought it was very interesting that the three recommendations dealt with classroom discipline. As seen in my other articles, it is essential for the teacher to be knowledgable about how to prevent negative behavior. I also think that the including of frequency, and status of behavior issues in school will help the state determine exactly why the behavior is occurring. This article was very interesting and these suggestions are valid and significant and should be used instead of the irrational state legislation.

//What did your research teach you about your original question? How would you sum up what you've learned?// My research taught me a great deal about discipline in the classroom. I learned that it is most impactful to NOT use discipline, and instead try to instill a good student teacher environment and good classroom environment so that kids are more likely to enjoy school, and not misbehave. This responsibility, along with many other responsibilities, are all in the hands of the teacher. Teachers need to have confidence in their students and their ability to learn, they need to realize when teaching methods might not work for the best for the students. Teachers must realize their faults, such as pointing out deficiencies more often than praises. Students learn their self value from their teachers, and therefore it is important for the teacher to regard each student equally. Especially for early childhood teachers, the teachers should instill the curiosity and thirst to learn in the children, so it lasts throughout their education. There are some effective disciplinary actions if all of this does not work. Some examples are planned ignoring, signal interference, involvement in the interest relationship, hurdle help, and permission and authoritative verboten. These are helpful in getting the student to stop, but the problem with discipline is that it doesn't teach the child to become responsible for himself/herself.

Relevance in Rhode Island Schools
//How does what you learned in your research inform efforts to reform schools in Rhode Island?// This information that I learned can help the effort to reform schools in Rhode Island because all schools should be trained on how best to manage their classrooms and their students. If Rhode Island teachers knew these helpful strategies and responsibilities that are absolutely necessary to manage their students, there would be less discipline problems in all schools. For example, when I researched the school in Portsmouth, it did not have a high suspension rate, mostly because it was an elementary school, but I believe that all suspension rates in all RI schools can be significantly decreased if teachers know about these responsibilities and methods. Every teacher must know this information because it is their responsibility to be there for the student and this student teacher relationship can highly impact any students life. Effective teachers are not just helpful in the subject matter, they are remembered for what they did for the student.

Related Links >
 * Aritcle about learning logs: This article is about wearing sensors to capture all surrounding events.