As we dive into the wonderful world of education – becoming fully licensed in our area of expertise, beaming with inspiration and readiness to improve the lives of all students, and the willingness to take on any and all challenges that we might face as new teachers – have you ever stopped to ask yourself, “What if I just can’t get through to my students? What if I do something to lose all respect and control in my classroom? What if other teachers look down upon me? What if I automatically turn into one of ‘those teachers’ who yell at students to constantly sit down and be quiet, becoming the negative person that everyone avoids? What if all of my efforts to become a licensed educator completely turn into failure?”

Ah, the jitters set in, as they always seem to, as these questions continue to persist in our minds. A fear of failure is not an uncommon one. Fortunately, life as a teacher does not have to turn out this way. With the proper tools and resources on successful classroom management techniques, we can begin to pave our way to victory on this journey. As a big believer of practice makes perfect, I also believe that applying our knowledge of effective classroom management skills can go a long way in shaping our success as educators, as well as the academic success of our students. 

Now that we are on our road to victory, the next few questions to ask are, “What are the different ways in which successful classroom management can be achieved? How do they differ based on grade-level and subject area? How does proper classroom management correlate with students’ academic achievement?” Let’s first take a look at one definition of classroom management.

“…management is about more than correcting the misbehaviors of individuals, more than just discipline. Classroom management is also about orchestrating or coordinating entire sets or sequences of learning activities so that everyone, misbehaving or not, learns as easily and productively as possible. Educators sometimes therefore describe good management as the creation of a positive learning environment, because the term calls attention to the totality of activities and people in a classroom, as well as to their goals and expectations about learning (Jones & Jones, 2007).”

Kelvin Seifert & Rosemary Sutton. (2009). Educational Psychology, 2nd Ed.

“The creation of a positive learning environment.” Sounds pretty great, doesn’t it? Not only will this type of setting be beneficial to the students’ academic success and overall development, it may also just be the reason why we become teachers in the first place – to positively impact our students. Now then, how can this level of utopia be achieved?

According to K. Seifert and R. Sutton, “The easiest management problems to solve are ones that do not happen in the first place!” (Educational Psychology, p. 140). What does this mean? Seifert and Sutton list the importance of “Arranging Classroom Space” – this includes seating charts, the layout of the furniture, and it is all dependent on what the subject matter is. Surely, a science classroom will be laid out differently than a language arts classroom, or a physical education class. The idea is to minimize distractions in order to focus on learning the subject matter as much as possible. Page 140 of Educational Psychology provides us with an interactive link to a virtual classroom layout activity. Try it out – it’s fun to envision your future classroom!

Below is a statement from an article titled “Classroom Management That Works” by Robert Marzano. He talks about a specific research study that was done on this topic. In conclusion to this research, as emphasis is made on the “withitness” or the constant awareness and anticipation of student behaviors. What are your thoughts on this study?

“Arguably, the first high-profile, large-scale, systematic study of classroom management was done by Jacob Kounin (1970). He analyzed videotapes of 49 first and second grade classrooms and coded the behavior of students and teachers. Kounin’s findings…he identified several critical dimensions of effective classroom management. Those dimensions (among others) are (1) ‘withitness’, (2) smoothness and momentum during lesson presentations, (3) letting students know what behavior is expected of them at any given point in time, and (4) variety and challenge in the seatwork assigned to students. ‘Withitness’ involves a keen awareness of disruptive behavior or potentially disruptive behavior and immediate attention to that behavior; of the four dimensions, it is the one that most consistently separates the excellent classroom managers from the average or below-average classroom managers.”

Robert Marzano. (2003). Classroom Management That Works.

In this article, Marzano also provides us with a visual of the impact of teacher effectiveness on student achievement.

Continuing with the notion that successful classroom management leads to students’ academic success, let’s take a look at Classroom Management Strategies: Gaining and Maintaining Students’ Cooperation, by James S. Cangelosi. Cangelosi’s article also has some great case-by-case classroom scenarios.

“By applying fundamental classroom management and discipline techniques, teachers can lead students to be engaged in learning activities for more than 90% of the allocated time (Cangelosi, 1990, pp. 13-20; Evertson, 1989; Fisher et al., 1980; Jones, 1979).”

James S. Cangelosi. (2014) Classroom Management Strategies: Gaining and Maintaining Students’ Cooperation.

Consider another similar research study on “Effective Classroom Management Strategies and Classroom Management Programs for Educational Practice”

“The findings revealed that teachers’ classroom management practices had a significant, positive effect on decreasing problem behaviour in the classroom. Students were less disruptive and showed less inappropriate and aggressive behaviour in the treatment classrooms compared with the control classrooms.”

Hanke Korpershoek, Truus Harms, Hester de Boer, Mechteld van Kuijk,
Simone Doolaard. (2014). Effective classroom management strategies and
classroom management programs for educational practice.

I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences with classroom management strategies. What do you think are most vital skills for success? What kind of adjustments need to be made in our classroom management style if we are educating students who have individual differences, such as different cognitive styles (aka learning styles), or students who are gifted and talented (interesting article from the Moodle course page on this, providing an overview of Dos and Don’ts), students who have learning disabilities, students who have physical or development disabilities, students who are English language learners, or come from different socio-economic backgrounds? The list goes on and on.

Let’s also not forget Lev Vygotsky’s “Social Development Theory” which states that community plays a central role in the process of “making meaning” in a child’s life. Based on this theory that social learning precedes development, we can recognize that each child may have a unique social upbringing, which may be something to consider when thinking about classroom management.

• McLeod, S. A. (2014). Lev Vygotsky. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html

Sources:

Kelvin Seifert & Rosemary Sutton. (2009). Educational Psychology, 2nd Ed.

Scholastic. (2019) Classroom Set-Up Tool. http://teacher.scholastic.com/tools/class_setup/

Robert Marzano. (2003). Classroom Management That Works. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=BVM2ml2Q-QgC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=classroom+management&ots=GepQ7SUfRW&sig=mmz2mSuCZBm0uya1T9KhXwxWOdU%23v=onepage&q=classroom%20management&f=false#v=snippet&q=classroom%20management&f=false

James S. Cangelosi. (2014) Classroom Management Strategies: Gaining and Maintaining Students’ Cooperation. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=rC8IDAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR17&dq=classroom+management+strategies&ots=CXtbq9ufg1&sig=iy1dIjW3RV_RS9eFLVTJY0X8CoY%23v=onepage&q=classroom%20management%20strategies&f=false#v=snippet&q=classroom%20management%20strategies&f=false

Hanke Korpershoek, Truus Harms, Hester de Boer, Mechteld van Kuijk,
Simone Doolaard. (2014). Effective classroom management strategies and
classroom management programs for educational practice. http://hankekorpershoek.nl/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/PDF-GION-rapport-Effective-Classroom-Management.pdf

George Lucas Educational Foundation. (2019) Serving Gifted Students in General Ed Classrooms. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/gifted-students-general-ed-classrooms-elissa-brown

McLeod, S. A. (2014). Lev Vygotsky. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html http://www.mrmikkola.com/uploads/1/0/5/7/10576731/simplypsychology.org-vygotsky.pdf

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You may have heard of something called the achievement gap, defined by the National Education Association “as the differences between the test scores of minority and/or low-income students and the test scores of their White and Asian peers.”

Maybe you heard it on the news, or this little thing called the Nation at Risk which came out in 1983 and called for the “reform of our educational system for the benefit of all.”

Now you may be thinking excitedly, yes! We finally see our problems and did something about our school systems, but have we actually improved it? Our Nations Report Card from the National Assessment of Educational Progress summarizes information from the standardized tests given to measure this. Depending on which achievement gap you are looking at you will get different results. Focusing on the White and African American results, the achievement gap has declined since the 1980s but is still large for all the resources we have available today. The graph below, which is interactive, shows the white and African American and white and Hispanic achievement gaps from the 1970s to 2012. As you can see, there is the general trend of decline, but some are still high in the achievement gap standard deviation. 

Typically, when we think of the achievement gap, we think of affluent versus underserved students which is defined as “students who do not receive equitable resources as other students in the academic pipeline,” according to Nicholas Highe and Jennifer Fisher. Unfortunately, the idea of poverty being a culture has been blamed for the relationship between race and socioeconomic factors and student achievement when in reality, structural racialization has been a major player. 

At this point you may be thinking, if all students in a school have access to the same resources and teachers, then why is the achievement gap still a big deal? Shouldn’t it almost be eliminated by now? On the surface one would think that, but we now know it is much more complicated than just doing better on a standardized test. 

So, what is affecting the achievement gap? This is the big question I wanted to know. We need to reach that deeper learning on how these problems are affecting our students and our possible implicit bias. The idea that poverty is a culture can play a role in this debated topic which is why as educators we need to reflect and seek the truth in how learning can be affected by these basic needs our students may not be getting.  This is why we need research. Being educated on topics we may think we know everything about is important in the field of education because we really only know the tip of the iceberg.

My next questions were how are nutrition and early resources at home affecting development? How does this development then play a role in learning? How is this learning then ultimately affecting the achievement gap? Let’s break this down.

We know food is important for our survival, but how does it affect our learning? According to Wilder Research, poor nutrition can lead to negative effects on students’ thinking and behavior in which leads to academic performance. Have you ever tried taking a test while your stomach was rumbling and found yourself fantasizing more about a steak dinner than your test? Imagine dealing with this everyday while being in class. Are you going to be paying attention to your teacher or your stomach? Not only does poor nutrition impact concentration, but also energy levels and brain function.

Without fuel for your brain, according to Fernando Gómez-Pinilla’s work from 2008,

“the ability of food-derived signals to influence energy metabolism and synaptic plasticity and, thus, mediate the effects of food on cognitive function.”  

Gómez-Pinilla, F. (2008). Brain foods: the effects of nutrients on brain function. Nature Reviews. Neuroscience, 9(7), 568–578

So, what does this mean? When we aren’t providing our brain with good nutritional food, our brain isn’t working at full capacity. That means the kind of foods our students are eating also affect learning and development. In the society we live in today, it is cheaper to buy less healthy foods like fast food restaurant products then it is to buy wholesome food at a grocery store. Under these conditions, underserved students may not get enough food, let alone the healthy foods their brains need for proper learning.  

The next question I wanted to know was how home resources may affect learning. If a student comes from a home where learning and reading were encouraged, lots of toys were provided for learning and developmental key stages, they will be much more prepared when starting school and possess the skills and development needed for their successful school career. A lack of educational materials for low income students produce low cognitive stimulation and enrichment (Wondering what these are?). Many agree that underserved students’ homes do not have these resources and experiences needed for proper cognitive development.

This also can include interactions with parents which can be key in cognitive development and learning. Christie Blazer provides some staggering statistics you can check out under the lack of educational activities and materials heading. Social, self, and moral developmental theories from Erik Erikson, Abraham Maslow, Lawrence Kohlberg and Carol Gilligan also become important while students learn these other developments that can affect them overtime for life success (Need a brush up?). Resources in the home may be affecting development much more than one would expect.

If we think of everything that aids to proper cognitive development, which the book Educational Psychology by Kelvin Seifert and Rosemary Sutton refers to as

“a child’s development of information processing, conceptual resources, perceptual skill, language learning and other aspects.”

Kelvin Seifert, & Rosemary Sutton. (2009). Educational Psychology (2nd ed.).

As we can see, many of those skills are affected by the two ecological factors discussed.

Thinking of both Jean Piaget’s cognitive development theory and Lev Vygotsky’s social development theory (Need to learn more?), we could see how these may affect a student’s development and executive function (Also need to learn more about EF?). If underserved students don’t have the opportunity to develop cognition as a child or interact culturally with social members to learn higher mental processes, they may not be at the same level as fellow peers that were provided those ecological factors. Both cognitive development and EF can cause difficulties when it comes to learning creating different levels of ability among students of the same age. If all these factors are affecting learning and development, what else are they affecting? Yep, you guessed, the achievement gap.

To make this easier, we could think of the staircase model like in the picture below.

By now you must be thinking, okay so learning is affecting development, but how is development affecting the achievement gap? If the average development, according to Educational Psychology, happens by building off the last stage or step in a hierarchy as some theories state, then development occurs as a process or staircase.

If an underserved student gets a late start on their cognitive, social, self, moral, or ethical development, they may not be on the same said “stairs” as their average peers and are still dependent learners. If learning ability isn’t yet at the same step as their peers, guess what is left? An achievement gap.

Here is another picture of a staircase, but do you notice what’s different? People are helping each other this time. Students and/or educators don’t need to feel like they have to tackle this problem all on their own. There are many classroom applications that can be used.

Collaborative learning can fill gaps in understanding between students who are independent learners to help dependent learners progress. We may need to provide underserved students with extra resources to create productive struggle. Activities could include hands on experiences or hypothetical questioning in order to generate and build brain power on the developmental stairs they are behind.

Scaffolding or giving students more organization in their tasks can help provide the push they need to challenge and grow their intellectual capacity.  The use of culturally responsive teaching and neuroscience can be applied to appropriately push the higher order thinking necessary for students to become independent learners.

Now of course there are always limitations. School budgets, teachers’ time constraints, individual situations and needs, outside of school factors all create variability in outcomes. But with the commitment of teachers, deep knowledge of brain-based principles and theories, and attentiveness of these risk factors, we can surely work on closing the achievement gap.

I would love to hear your thoughts on how we can support in providing some of the ecological factors that may be missing for underserved students. If we can assist in these, we can change the effect they have in development and in turn the achievement gap. Let me know your thoughts.

Interested in more factors that may be affecting our underserved students I didn’t discuss?

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Sources:

A Nation At Risk [Evaluative Reports; Policy Guidance]. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/risk.html

Blazer, C., & Romanik, D. (n.d.). THE EFFECT OF POVERTY ON STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT. 24.

Common Causes of the Achievement Gaps. (2018, March 2). Retrieved from Corwin website: https://us.corwin.com/en-us/nam/equity-causes-of-achievement-gaps

Gómez-Pinilla, F. (2008). Brain foods: the effects of nutrients on brain function. Nature Reviews. Neuroscience, 9(7), 568–578. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2421

Highe, N. (n.d.). School Counselors Bridging the Gap Between Colleges, Careers, Underserved Students and Their Families. 22.

Kelvin Seifert, & Rosemary Sutton. (2009). Educational Psychology (2nd ed.).

Learning to Read and Write: What Research Reveals | Reading Rockets. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.readingrockets.org/article/learning-read-and-write-what-research-reveals

Research, W. (n.d.). Nutrition and Students’ Academic Performance. 10.

Saul McLeod. (2018). Vygotsky | Simply Psychology. Retrieved from https://www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html

Social development: relationships,personal motives, and morality | Educational Psychology. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/educationalpsychology/chapter/social-development-relationshipspersonal-motives-and-morality/

Students Affected by Achievement Gaps. (n.d.). Retrieved from NEA website: http://www.nea.org//home/20380.htm

The Educational Opportunity Monitoring Project: Racial and Ethnic Achievement Gaps. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://cepa.stanford.edu/educational-opportunity-monitoring-project/achievement-gaps/race/

yacobuca. (2019, May 16). Executive Function: building a toolkit to support teaching and learning about EF. Retrieved from summeredublog website: https://summeredublog.home.blog/2019/05/16/executive-function/

Zaretta Hammond. (2015). Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain. Sage Publications Ltd.

Each week we have new guest bloggers, follow us to stay in the loop – just click the follow button on the lower righthand side.

Well, I did it again. I ran out of time. In class yesterday, with topics spanning a variety of theories, systems, and processes of human development, I didn’t have time to address the formation of moral reasoning and its’ application to teaching and learning.

The fact is, I don’t think I’m alone.

As Paul Barnwell, teacher and writer based in Kentucky, writes in his poignant article about the lack of moral education being taught in schools today:

For many American students who have attended a public school at some point since 2002, standardized-test preparation and narrowly defined academic success has been the unstated, but de facto, purpose of their schooling experience. And while school mission statements often reveal a goal of preparing students for a mix of lifelong success, citizenship, college, and careers, the reality is that addressing content standards and test preparation continues to dominate countless schools’ operations and focus.

Barnwell, P. Students’ Broken Moral Compasses: The pressures of national academic standards have pushed character education out of the classroom. The Atlantic. (2016).

As a society, have we prioritized academic standards and test preparation at the expense of moral development?

A quick review of the history of moral education in the United States points to the ebb and flow of moral education, a movement toward value-free education, the packaging and repackaging of character education, and the current emphasis on social emotional learning.

In fact, the very turning point that Barnwell argues is responsible for pushing character education out of the classroom, No Child Left Behind included character education as a central aspect to education reform.

This leads me to question:
-Is a focus on academic standards to blame or is something else standing in the way of moral education?
-Do teachers understand morality thoroughly enough to effectively facilitate learning experiences that foster its’ development?
-How can teachers make the time for moral education while also supporting academic rigor?
-Does this all come down to the fact that some professor ran out of time to address the importance of moral development during the one class dedicated to mentioning the topic???

In my attempt to answer these questions, I realized it’s pretty complex. Issues of fairness, empathy, trust, ethics, correctness, responsibilities, values, conduct, and judgements of what is right or wrong underscore just how complicated the construct of morality really is. Various interpretations exist among individuals, cultures, and societies.

So now what?

First, we need to learn more about morality.

The science of morality is an expanding topic of study among psychologists and neurobiologists. Discovery, a series by BBC World Service that explores the nature of science, produced a podcast titled “The Science of Morality.” During the episode, Dr. Carinne Piekema interviews leading psychology and neurobiology researchers who are working to break down moral beliefs into their component processes. Their research supports everything from teaching empathy to giving more hugs. (BTW, Hugs are always a good idea. We need more hugs. It’s a scientific fact!)

Second, we need to make small adjustments to what we’re already doing.

According to Teaching Tolerance:

Empathy and academics need not be mutually exclusive. In fact, a focus on empathy can increase student achievement. This toolkit for “Empathy for the ‘A’” shows teachers how to build empathy into their practice with a few adjustments to the things they already do.

Teaching Tolerance. Toolkit for “Empathy for the ‘A'”. (2016).

TT’s Toolkit for “Empathy for the ‘A'” supports teachers in making these small adjustments in their classroom through the use of student feedback, using games in the classroom, curriculum planning, setting goals, and building relationships.

Third, we need to get on board with the Social Emotional Learning (SEL) movement.

Another way to attend to moral education in the classroom is through the implementation of Social Emotional Learning. The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) is a trusted source for knowledge about high-quality, evidence-based SEL. They provide a number of resources for educators including this systematic framework to identify, evaluate, and provide best-practices for SEL programs.

Lastly, we need to engage students in authentic learning experiences that address moral dilemmas.

Making space for classroom discussions that engage students in identifying and addressing community issues, societal problems, and social dilemmas is not only relevant and academically challenging, but offers opportunities for students to understand complex issues from multiple perspectives. This process of higher order thinking allows students to grapple with the contradictions inherent in human morality. When students obtain an awareness of moral judgements, they expand their own moral reasoning.

With this in mind, let me end with the classic moral dilemma that Kohlberg himself would propose to people to determine their morality of justice- The Heinz Dilemma. It goes as follows:

A woman was on her deathbed. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman’s husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $1,000 which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: “No, I discovered the drug and I’m going to make money from it.” So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man’s laboratory to steal the drug for his wife.

Kohlberg, L. (1981). Essays on Moral Development, Vol l. I: The Philosophy of Moral Development. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row. 

Now consider these questions:
-Should Heinz steal the drug? Why or why not?
-Suppose the person dying is not his wife but a stranger. Should Heinz steal the drug for a stranger? Why or why not?
-It is against the law to steal. Does that make it morally wrong? Why or why not?

I’d love to hear what you think. Share your comments below.

Sources:
Barnwell, P. (2016). The Atlantic. Students’ Broken Moral Compasses: The pressures of national academic standards have pushed character education out of the classroom. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/07/students-broken-moral-compasses/492866/

Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. (2017). Framework for Systemic Social and Emotional Learning. Retrieved from: https://casel.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/CASEL-Wheel-2.pdf

Discovery. BBC World Service. (2012). The Science of Morality. Retrieved from: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00rdps3

Kohlberg, L. (1981). Essays on Moral Development, Vol l. I: The Philosophy of Moral Development. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row. 

McLeod, S. (2013). Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development. Retrieved from: https://www.simplypsychology.org/kohlberg.html

Stateuniversity.com Educator’s Encyclopedia. (2019). Moral Education: A Brief History of Moral Education, The Return of Character Education, Current Approaches to Moral Education. Retrieved from: https://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2246/Moral-Education.html

Teaching Tolerance. (2016). Toolkit for “Empathy for the ‘A'”. Retrieved from: https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/spring-2016/toolkit-for-empathy-for-the-a

U.S. Department of Education. (2005). No Child Left Behind. Character Education: Our Shared Responsibility [PDF File]. Retrieved from: https://www2.ed.gov/admins/lead/character/brochure.pdf

Each week we have new guest bloggers, follow us to stay in the loop – just click the follow button on the lower righthand side.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton