Week+2

**__Week 2__**

With reference to the lecture presented by Ramon Lewis (9/3/09) groups were asked in their tutorials to reflect on a discussion point that was introduced and were then asked to present their ideas and thoughts to the class.

Our group, as with all, focused on the four types of students that have been identified by Lewis as comprising a classroom situation. These four groups included students from type A which are considered to be managed by the normal curriculum; meaning having the ability to be self-directed and learn what is contained in the curriculum, in contrast students from type B are identified as having to be managed in the class this referring to their ability to learn however on occasion must be managed due to their behaviour of either frustration, boredom or disruption to the rest of their class. In comparison also, are students from the type C who need to be managed out of class on account of their 'misbehaviour' and constant distractive tendencies, and lastly are students of type D who are not managed due to their inability to follow a rule-based approach either because of their inability to concentrate, issues related to home life etc. The latter is then commonly punished in an attempt to diffuse the situation however this has been proven as a ineffective reaction to type D students.

Related to the types of students mentioned above; there are five identified 'powers' that teachers can draw upon to control and/or manage classrooms and the behaviours of all student types. The five 'powers' include Legitimate Power (Role Related), Expert Power (Knowledge & Skills), Referent Power (Relationship), Coercive Power (Punishment) and Reward Power (Recognition).

Our group was interested to discover the common body language behind the types of students mentioned above and also the 'power' that a teacher may likely exert in each situation. We undertook a discussion and decided upon the most appropriate body languages related to the types with A being a studious pose, B a focused however somewhat distracted pose, C a distracted, uncooperative and disinterested pose and D a very disruptive, 'naughty' and distracting pose. We also decided as a presentation method to do a freeze-frame for each student and as there are four of us in the group and four types of students this worked well and seemed appropriate. The only student that didn't do a freeze-frame was D because they are uncontrollable to an extent and we tried to reflect this by having this student as the only one that wouldn't sit still.

This method with the addition of an explanation of another student by each other as to what the pose was representative of, worked well and seemed to relay our message of body language and the methods employed to target such behaviour.

What prompted this presentation was a very informative and thought-provoking lecture obviously by someone that had a wealth of expertise in the field of classroom management and the way in which to present such information to an audience. The information given seemed to highlight several relevant points from one particular reading. Freiberg (2007) comments on the differences between traditional classroom management; an imposing discipline and person-centred classroom management which involves a self-discipline in which both student and teacher are balanced in terms of their responsibilities towards the class. Being given a sense of responsibility from a higher authority would seem beneficial to all types of students. Also highlighted by Freiberg (2007) is a slowly-developed trust that is built amongst student and teacher in a person-centred classroom, this making reference to the Referent Power particulary. Further to this is an end goal of encouraging students to think for themselves, to help one another and to nurture opportunities to learn from one's own experience, therefore engaging all types of students, providing them with a feeling or responsibility and also generating positive feelings about their personal opinions and life experiences that they feel empowered to share. Author: Angela Partridge

**Issues in Education Lecture 2 9/3/2009 Classroom Management- Professor Ray Lewis.**

Classroom management is an issue which every teacher at any level will face everyday. Professor Raymond Lewis gave a very interesting lecture on this topic. During the lecture Professor Lewis used two main themes; student rights and classroom management.

As Angela has discussed in the main post above, students can be placed into four categories A,B,C and D which as Professor Lewis stated is a broad generalisation. Whilst I agree with the above post, I don't think these issues can be so easily defined and more emphasis should be placed on the underlying causes of undesirable classroom behaviours. Refer to [|Hagen-Hall and Verharrt (2008)]. It is possible for many students to move between these categories depending on any number of outside influences, for example, changes in family situations such as divorce, or the loss of a parent would almost certainly have an effect on student performance and behaviour which has been noted in research done by [|McKinnon (2006)]//. //

The strategies Angela has covered and the role play exercise described is very interesting and I would certainly look to use these strategies in a classroom setting. Overall I believe a combination of the practices Professor Lewis advocates and getting to know as much about the background of our students as possible will go a long way to making all who participated in the lecture and tutorial better teachers. Author: Nick Power

I think the issues we covered this week have been particularly useful for us so far. Professor Lewis' breakdown of the classroom, the students and its teacher is very practical advice for us that we are already beginning to use and benefit from. This is shown in the discussion Beth, Angela and I had recently about how we ourselves would operate and cope in our own classrooms in the future. Angela and I were worried about lacking the confidence to gain the respect and therefore attention of the kids in order to effectively control the classroom. Beth was not so concerned about her own abilities, and we decided this was because of our own individual personalities. In the chat I found myself referring back to these ideas from the Week 2 lecture and even using the terminology to explain how we would each influence our students. Beth who is a confident person would quickly gain the respect of her students, possibly utilising Expert or Legitimate Power. Angela on the other hand would very likely win her students over using Referent Power and gain their respect through initial friendships. Both ways, or a blending of the two, we decided would arguably succeed in different classrooms. From this it is clear how useful these inital foundational theories are, as we student teachers are starting to think about how we would apply our knowledge gained here at uni in the real world when we actually become teachers. Author: Bianca Alvarez Harris

Before decided to undertake this course I consulted with a variety of people involved in primary and secondary education and I was advised by all that the most challenging part of being a teacher is classroom management. Drawing on my own experience as an adult training I could easily see how this would be the case and I was fascinated by some of the approaches demonstrated in the lecture and again in the readings for this week. More importantly what I really enjoyed and found useful this week was the conversations and discussions that this topic generated. Both the lecture and the activity in the workshop seemed to capture the imagination of many of the students leading to some honest self appraisals of our strengths and weaknesses. Bianca has already touched upon some of the discussions that we had within this wiki group but it was interesting to note that despite our personalities we all shared the same fear deep down that we would not be able to control the classroom. My own personal fear was that I could have a tendency to be too controlling and autocratic and while this fear is different from those who feared they would not earn respect we decided it would have the same outcome in the end. An unproductive learning environment. This kind of self appraisal can be confronting but I actually felt that with the background of the lecture and the readings it was almost a relief to share these concerns with people in the same situation.  An article that I found particularly useful when looking at this topic was //Schoolwide and Classroom Discipline// by Kathleen Cotton ( [] ). This article discusses classroom discipline within the context of preventive and enforcement discipline as well as long at specific forms of discipline problems. I found some of the practical suggestions towards the end to be very useful and will be trying to add them to my personal teaching pedagogy. Author: Beth McMullin