CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES Cameron Fenton Lead TA 2014

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES Cameron Fenton Lead TA 2014 -2015

AGENDA 1. Conflict in the Classroom 2. Conflict outside the Classroom 3. Case Studies (throughout)

SOURCES OF CLASSROOM CONFLICT (APPLEBY 1990) (1) Immature behaviors such as talking during lectures, chewing gum, eating or drinking noisily, being late, and creating disturbances (2) Inattentive behaviors such as sleeping during class, cutting class, acting bored or apathetic, not paying attention, being unprepared, packing books and materials before class is over (3) Miscellaneous behaviors such as cheating, asking “Will it be on the test? ” and expressing more interest in grades than in learning.

CASE STUDY: THE SLEEPER In your table groups discuss how you might respond to the following situation. Be prepared to have someone from your group summarize the discussion: One of your students falls asleep in class. While they are not disrupting anyone else, you find it distracting. The student has not done this before, though they often look very tired during class. What would you do?

EXAMPLE APPROACHES 1. Wait until the end of class and then ask the student not to come to class in the future if they are just going to sleep. 2. Wait until the end of class and then ask if the student is alright. Sometimes a student has just had a rough week. 3. Wake the student up and ask if everything is alright. This is only a good approach if you are genuinely concerned. The student is still likely to be embarrassed, but not as much as if you woke them and then made fun of them for falling asleep. 4. Start a group activity. This will most likely wake the student up and avoid the potential embarrassment of directly waking them up.

CONFLICT IN THE CLASSROOMCONTROVERSIAL TOPICS Philosophy classes often involve engaging with ideas that are controversial. When you, or another student, challenges a student’s core beliefs they sometimes respond with hostility. As long as you are teaching a class with controversial subject matter there is almost no way to avoid some kind of conflict. However, you can learn to better manage conflict. I can’t make you a master of classroom management in this workshop, but I hope I can provide you with strategies to help you improve.

CONTROVERSIAL TOPICS -Abortion -Euthanasia -Terrorism -War -Torture -Animal rights -Genetic engineering Some of these might not seem controversial to you, but they can be for your students.

PREVENT AND REACT Many of the strategies I’ll suggest today are designed to prevent or minimize conflict rather than react to it. Of course, these prevention and minimization strategies won’t eliminate all conflict, so we’ll also be discussing case studies where conflict does occur.

STRATEGIES TO MANAGE CONFLICT: PURPOSE One of the best things you can do is to clearly identify why you are discussing a controversial topic. Make it clear that the purpose of the discussion is not to provoke or anger anyone, but rather to explore difficult parts of the world we live in. A good way to make the purpose of the lecture clear is to explicitly state the objectives of the discussion. If the topic is torture, you might say that your goal is to help your students understand why consequentialists and deontologists might have different views on its acceptability in certain circumstances.

STRATEGIES TO MANAGE CONFLICT: GROUND RULES Develop a set of ground rules with your students. These are best discussed on the first day of class or as early as possible. They don’t have to be fancy, but they should give you something to point to if the discussion gets out of hand. If someone says or does something that violates one of the ground rules you can point this out (nicely) and ask them to rephrase their concern. Here a few examples: 1. Don’t interrupt others while they are speaking 2. Respect your fellow students even when they don’t agree with you 3. Don’t criticize other people directly, criticize their arguments. Telling someone they are stupid doesn’t further discussion, but pointing out a problem with their argument does.

STRATEGIES TO MANAGE CONFLICT: BACKGROUND Remember that not all of your students have done the assigned readings. Try to go over a few arguments and responses before opening up the discussion. The goal of this strategy is to make sure your students all have some common background on the controversial topic. This allows them to engage with each other rather than talking past one another. Of course, they are still going to talk past one another sometimes and wander off topic, but you can use the common background you provided them to guide their concerns back on topic.

STRATEGIES TO MANAGE CONFLICT: FRAMEWORK Have a plan for the discussion. You don’t want the discussion to be too rigid, but you also don’t want it to be a free-for-all. Something simple you can do to provide a discussion framework is to put a list of open ended questions on the board. Try to focus each question on one problem and have some backup questions if no one feels like speaking. You might ask them why the problem is difficult to discuss to get them talking. You could also break them into small groups and ask them to answer at least one of the questions together.

STRATEGIES TO MANAGE CONFLICT: INCLUSION Part of your job is to make sure everyone feels comfortable speaking. Ground rules can help with this, but using group activities can also be very effective. Group work can help in at least the following two ways: 1. Lots of people aren’t comfortable speaking up in front of the whole class, but are willing to speak in a group of three or four. 2. Small groups encourage students to get to know one another. People are generally less likely to be mean to others if they know them.

STRATEGIES TO MANAGE CONFLICT: ACTIVE FACILITATION A good facilitator focuses and refines the discussion without imposing upon it. - Try to reword student questions so they make more sense or more directly address the topic. You might ask “what did you mean by X? ” or “when you said X, did you mean Y? ” Try not to be too heavy-handed, but students usually won’t mind if you interpret their questions with charity. - Gently Correct misinformation. If a student says something that is mistaken, then you should intervene to correct their statement. - Keep the discussion focused on course materials. Try to use examples from the assigned readings to further discussion. If someone says something interesting you can ask them how author X might respond.

CASE STUDY: THE INAPPROPRIATE COMMENT In your table groups, discuss how the following situation could be resolved. Be prepared to have someone in your group summarize your discussion (5 minutes). During a conversation about moral relativism a student raises his hand says, “There are clearly right and wrongs. People in China eat cats and dogs all the time, but clearly that is morally wrong and they are bad people”. One of the students in the class is an exchange student from China. How do you proceed?

EXAMPLE APPROACHES 1. Correct the student and inform him that his statement is a vast overgeneralization. 2. Correct the student but then explain why the example isn’t a good objection to relativism even if it were true.

HOSTILITY Sometimes you will have a student become hostile toward you. Remember that this is not appropriate or acceptable. It’s fine for a student to ask questions and disagree with you, but it’s not acceptable to yell at you or act threateningly. Depending on the severity of the situation you have several options: 1. Tell the student their behavior is inappropriate and that they should leave if they can’t control themselves. 2. If you feel comfortable, take the student aside after class and tell them that their behavior was inappropriate. Sometimes students don’t realize that their behavior was inappropriate. 3. Follow up with the course instructor or department chair. 4. Follow up with Equity and Human Rights Services.

WHAT ABOUT ANNOYANCES? So far I’ve focused on conflict that can arise during discussions. I’d now like to turn to students who are disruptive or annoying. Ground rules are very effective with this category of problems. Example: Don’t like students texting? Tell them they aren’t allowed to use their phones during class.

DIFFERING PERSPECTIVES Sometimes what you think is disruptive isn’t obvious to students. If some of the following behaviors bother you, then you should point them out early. 1. Leaning back in their chair 2. Using a phone 3. Using a laptop 4. Eating 5. Leaving class for breaks

CASE STUDY: THE GIGGLERS Discuss the following case with your table group, be prepared to have someone from the group summarize what you discussed (5 minutes): Two students sit near the back of class and frequently laugh and giggle while you are speaking. You are not making jokes or doing anything obviously funny. They also do this when other students share their ideas. What might you do to make the classroom a place where everyone feels comfortable sharing their ideas?

EXAMPLE APPROACHES 1. Ask the students to stay after class and ask them if they could try to control their giggling. Explain to them that laughing when another student speaks makes the classroom an unwelcoming environment. 2. Take the students aside after class and tell them that their behavior is not appropriate. You might encourage them to think about how they would feel if someone else laughed every time they said something.

STORY TIME

CONFLICT OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM Conflict outside the classroom includes any conflict that arises during your office hours or through email. This kind of conflict can be particularly troublesome because it often occurs one-on-one with the student.

CASE STUDY: THE INTIMIDATOR Discuss the following case with your table group, be prepared to have someone from the group summarize what you discussed (5 minutes): A particularly large muscular student comes to your office and he is very upset about his grade on a recent assignment. The student is much bigger than you and he seems intent on yelling at you. He doesn’t explicitly threaten you, but his movements and tone are very intimidating. What can you do to resolve this situation?

CASE STUDY: MY FRIEND’S TA Discuss the following case with your table group, be prepared to have someone from the group summarize what you discussed (5 minutes): One of your students comes to your office hours to talk to you about a recently returned assignment. He starts by telling you that one of his friends wrote a very similar answer and when she went to see her TA the TA increased her grade from a 60% to an 80%. Your student then argues that his grade should be increased as well, otherwise you are being unfair and he’ll have to go the professor. How can you respond?

One of your students comes to your office hours to talk to you about a recently returned assignment. He starts by telling you that one of his friends wrote a very similar answer and when she went to see her TA the TA increased her grade from a 60% to an 80%. Your student then argues that his grade should be increased as well, otherwise you are being unfair and he’ll have to go the professor. How do the following two possibilities change your response (5 minutes): 1. The other TA actually did change the grade and the two answers really are similar, though you think both students should have received a 60%. 2. Both students are in your tutorial and you gave them substantially different grades for similar answers. Oops.

Some of your students just won’t like you. It sucks, but there’s only so much you can do about it. It’s important to listen to student feedback, but you can’t please everyone. If ten people love what you’re doing, three are indifferent, and two hate it, then you should probably just keep doing what your doing. Remember that even if a few students don’t like you, they should still respect you.

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