Negative disruptions

Running Head: NEGATIVE Negative Disruption Tina Murray Grand Canyon University: EDU 536 Classroom management is best when students are following procedures and doing what is expect of them. Disruptions and misbehaviors are under control. The ideal classroom where students behave the way they are expected to. Classrooms like this are only found in heaven where perfection is the mainstream of life. Classroom disruptions happen in almost every classroom. Let’s be honest, it happens in every classroom not almost every classroom. Educators deal with students who have their own mind and want to control as much as they can. The frustrations of teachers with classroom management are caused by the negative classroom conditions or disruptions made by students. For the purposes of this investigation the following negative disruptions will be discussed in detail, talking without permission, disruptive noises, texting or computer usage, tardiness, sleeping in class, unpreparedness, insults, physical threats, and passing notes. One of the major classroom disruptions is talking during lecture, or shouting out comments without raising hands for permission. A student who talks either to other classmates or blurts out during lessons is rude and leads to more serious disruptive behavior (Linsin, 2009). A teacher allows her students to freely discuss the topic of discussion during class. Students are actively shouting out answers and the noise level gets high. To anyone looking in on this class from the outside it seems that the class is out of control. To the teacher it is a chaos she can manage. She loves it when her students interact in this way, but as the year has went on this type of activity has gotten out of hand. Students are behaving with free discussion most of the time and the teacher is having a hard time bring them back into a quiet, productive learning environment that all students can benefit from. This classroom is lacking in structure and procedures in how the class should run from the beginning. It is not wrong to have days where free discussion happens, but students need to be taught the procedures when this can take place. The best way to handle talking out of turn is to enforce a consequence every time this procedure is disregarded (Linsin, 2009). Teachers have to be consistent in enforcing the rules so they are never seen as a teacher who favors one student over another. Disruptive noises within classrooms are going to happen. A student starts tapping his pencil, another starts clicking their mouth, and still another starts humming. All of these noises maybe innocent not intentionally trying to disrupt the learning environment, but noises may cause learning to stop or become difficult for some students. Some students will disrupt the class with disruptive noises to get the teacher off tract. No matter how the noises happen the learning in the room is being compromised. Not all noises come from the students there are outside noises that may disrupt the learning environment. How do teachers handle these interruptions to their learning environments? Harry Wong states that establishing classroom rules and expectations will address most of the disruptions from students (Charles, 2011). Procedures around the noises from outside forces can be address by teaching students proper responses to noise interference from outside the classroom (Charles, 2011). Teaching in the private sector has its advantages. Classes are typically small which can be a plus because teachers can address more issues one on one. One thing that is a frustration is students not being on time or are unprepared for class which is more noticed in a smaller class. Tardiness and unpreparedness has been a constant disruption to classroom learning for eons. Unpreparedness ranges from not having the proper materials such as a pencil, paper, or book to not having read or done the homework. Procedures taught at the beginning of the year about the rules and policies of tardiness will go a long way in preventing this behavior (Roberts, 2011). Some of these policies need to include the parents as well. Private schools typically have parents dropping off their students. Parents need to understand the importance of having their students at school on time. Students who are late will typically miss valuable instruction about the concepts being taught. They also will cause disruptions as they come into the class. A well planned out procedure for students who are late will help lower the disruptiveness. Another day in the classroom of the unprepared, student’s hand goes up and asks if they may leave to get their book, notebook, or pencil. Unpreparedness is becoming an epidemic within the classrooms. This unpreparedness takes away from student learning and disrupts class because students interrupt to take care of the issue on class time. The year was almost over and the teacher could not figure out how to deal with the unpreparedness until she learned of a procedure that could help. Procedures have to be established in the beginning of the year to be most effective (Charles, 2011). She thought she could try this one procedure for the rest of the year to see if it works. Before the procedure was implemented a typical day was students came in with their backpacks everywhere. Books, notebooks, and pencils were never taken out until well after class time began. The noise level that incurred while student retrieved their materials was a major disruption. Not to mention the backpacks which were in the way of the isles around the tables could cause a tripping accident. The procedure was implemented by saying the students would come 5 minutes before class began, leave their backpacks in the hall and bring in their books, pencils, and notebooks and place them at their seat. It has been over 2 weeks and this procedure has been working great. Students always have their materials and are ready when class starts. Technology is a fact in the era we live in. Cell phone and computer use within the classroom are a fact teachers have to come to terms with, but just like other devices in the past anything can become a distraction for the student who is using it or for other students within the class. Some educators are big promoters to the use of computer and cell phone devices in class but where does the use of technology benefit and not hinder the learning process. It all comes back to procedures within classroom management. Students taught the procedure for proper use of cell phones or computers and follow these procedures should be allowed to use the device. If the privilege of use is abused then the devices are no longer allowed. A natural consequence to a misbehavior procedure is not to allow the use of the devices. This is not a punishment but a consequence (Charles, 2011). It is common knowledge why a student would like to use a laptop during class. Especially with students who have a form of learning disability or ADHD, technological devices seem to keep them focused in class. Student use of cell phones within class is not as clear. Laptops can have the wireless connections to the internet blocked so students can only use word for note taking. Most cell phones can connect to the internet with the phones provider services. Students can then text or surf web sources within class. This may seem like a great resource, but it can open up the temptation of getting answers to tests from other classmates. It all comes down to school and classroom policies the procedures of how educators teach students proper responsibility and use of technology (Charles, 2011). Passing notes has been around forever. It now has a link to text messaging within class but there are still those students who pass notes. The written word is so powerful. It can bring about the greatest feeling or the greatest sadness. Notes that are passed may contain complaints of other people within the class to include the teacher. From the perspective of the teacher if the note passer is caught it is seen as disrespectful. So how do we as educators teach respect to our students? Respect for the teacher, other students, or themselves. A reason why students pass notes is because the classroom is not engaging enough. There is too much lag time from concept to concept, or the teacher is boring. Students try to fill these times with things that are engaging. In most cases these other things are disruptive to the class. Solutions for this type of behavior are to have a lesson plan that uses all available time. Students will stay engaged with the lesson and have little time to disrupt the class or other students by passing notes. The last set of disruptions is the type of disruptions that comes from physical or verbal threats or insults. In schools today the disciplinary problems now are much different from the disciplinary problems of the past. Once we were more concerned with gum chewing and now we are concerned with the student packing a knife. In the classroom the disruption may be seen as a student that is upset over a comment made to them in the hall before they entered. A comment that now has them in fear of their life after school. The student is preoccupied, disengaging, and maybe disruptive. Violence and insults are in many cases plaguing our classrooms and schools. Many schools have policies to address these disruptions like mentoring programs, no tolerance programs, dress codes, and closed campus lunch policy. The disruption that violence and insults make in the classroom is usually the after affects of the incident. It is hard to keep the class engaged in the lecture of Class Aves when one of their fellow students was just beat up in the hallway. It is at these times that a teacher needs to address the class with compassion and let them know that one they are safe and their friend is being taken care of. The ability to calm the class down is the most effective way to get the class back on track. It is sad when the problems we face now in school are of a violent nature and those of the 1940’s were of a benign issue (Dolan, 2012). Classroom management is an ongoing process to ensure the learning environment of the classroom is best for all students. Disruptions of many kinds can find their way into the classroom and cause chaos. As a teacher I need to have policies in place to guide my students so disruptions are lessened during the class period. At times these procedures may have to be adjusted to address disruptions that have never been experienced. Teachers with flexibility in the management process will find success. Reference Charles, C. (2011). Building Classroom Discipline. Boston: Pearson. Dolan, S. (2012, May). umich. edu. Retrieved from How to Prevent School Violence: http://sitemaker. umich. edu/356. dolan/how_to_prevent_school_violence Linsin, M. (2009, Nov 29). Retrieved from smartclassroommanagement. com: http://www. smartclassroommanagement. com/2009/11/25/how-to-handle-talkative-students/ Roberts, C. (2011, August 15). ehow. com. Retrieved from http://www. ehow. com/info_10066663_can- schools-prevent-tardiness. html