classroom dynamics

Striking the perfect balance between the extremes of ultra- discipline and a lassez-fiare “anything goes” approach is not easy. This  post begins by asking various questions and along the way provides some home-spun answers. None of the ideas here are intended to be prescriptive, rather they are intended to be a starting point, working towards a better understanding of what is happening in the classroom.

Before starting, why not take this test:

• In a study conducted by Denis Girad (1970), 1000 students between 12-17 were asked to list teacher qualities in order of preference, 1 being the most important to them and 10 the least important.
  • What do think the results were?
• Scroll to the end of the post to see if you
  • guessed the qualities identified by the students
  • correctly guessed their order…

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This milling activity is very simple. Each student has a different sequential series written on a strip of paper. Their task is to find the participant wıith the exactly the same sequence as them self. For this to be a speaking and listening task, monitor the learners carefully to ensure they don’t show their sequences to people. Read the rest of this entry »

The circle game: You say and I listen

This type of activity lends itself to ımproving group cohesion through a cooperative or collaborative task involving listening and speaking.

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At best, all teachers have some form of behaviour management system in place which will enable them to not only control their class, but will also allow for a healthy and productive learning environment. At worst, teachers and learners adopt strategies simply to get them through the day.

I have been obliged to revisit and analise my own approach to behaviour management and in order to do so, I have unearthed some of my own notes which I am sharing with you now.

A teacher’s personality will have a direct bearing on the strategy adopted and its effectiveness. What may work for one person, may not work for another. It is possible that a school’s ethos or policy statement may not allow for a teacher’s particular behaviour management style…

In this series of posts, there are listed three possible approaches to behaviour management:

• a humanist approach

• Glasser’s Control Theory (William Glasser: Control theory (1986)) and,

• assertive discipline approach

There are many more and in a post modernist world (if you live in that kind of society) it is often the case that they are not exclusive to one another and there is some degree of overlap.

‘Cooperative learning is group learning activity organised in such a way that learning is dependent on the socially structured exchange of information between learners in groups. Each leaner is held accountable for his or her own learning, and is motivated to increase the learning of others.’

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