Casey malack's classroom enviroNment Guide

Communicating in a positive manner helps to ensure better understanding of expectations and build better classroom relationships. Communicating to students in a positive way can help boost self-esteem and make a student more receptive to what you are trying to get across. I value positive communication in my classroom because using words of affirmation and compliments builds a students confidence which in return helps them to become a more open student in the classroom. Ginott’s contributions mainly dealt with positive communication and discipline. He said that when praising a student, you should give appreciative feedback, or feedback that shows praise for what the student has done, not the student's character. In those moments where you need to give constructive criticism, Ginott suggests using “I messages” if you are upset with a student or they have behaved inappropriately. You can say “I am upset by your actions” not “ you upset me” in order to better communicate with the student their actions while not criticizing them. Ginott promoted fostering positive interactions with students every time you interact with them. Dreikur said that children have a primary and compelling desire to feel they are a valued member of the class and that they belong. Student's sense belonging when the teacher and others give them attention and respect, involve them in activities, and do not mistreat them. He said by always speaking in positive terms and never negative, we can help children feel worthy and valued. Drekiurs said a teacher should be optimistic, enthusiastic, and have a positive outlook that is contagious when speaking with the students.

Setting behavior expectations sets the tone for how your entire school year will go. Establishing the rules for the classroom and what consequences take place if you choose to break them on the first day of school can clear up any confusions or misunderstandings about the behavior that is allowed to take place in the classroom. In my classroom, together as a class, we will take ten or so minutes to come up with our behavior expectations for the classroom anchor chart. After completion, this chart will be hung up in the classroom somewhere where the students can easily see it every day so they know what is expected of them. Having the expectations displayed in sight to the students saves me valuable class time from repeating what is expected of them. Linda Albert constructed the idea of a class code of conduct as a way of setting behavior expectations. From the first contact with students, teachers should involve students cooperatively in developing a class code of conduct. This code stipulates behavior expected of everyone in the class. As part of the process, teachers and students jointly decide on consequences to be invoked when students transgress the class code. When students participate in developing consequences to be applied when misbehavior occurs, they become much more likely to consider those consequences reasonable and abide by them. Marlene and Lee Canters had some thoughts on how to consistently remind students of behavior expectations in the form of a first warning when students act out. In other words, if a child breaks a rule, the teacher should remind the child of the rule and give a warning, then, next time the child breaks the same rule, the teacher should say something like ”Amy, you knew the rule and you chose to break this and get 5 minutes time out”. The student needs to know that this was their choice, and the consequence is a result of their action since they knew what behaviors are expected from them and were even reminded previously. By saying this when the child receives their consequence, they learn not to repeat the action if they don’t want the corresponding consequence.

Positive reinforcement is when the teacher rewards students for good behavior, encouraging the repetition of the good behavior. When a student is rewarded for their actions, they quickly pick up on the pattern that if they behave well they are rewarded in return. To me, positive reinforcement is effective in the classroom because it encourages good behavior without me having to yell or drill behavior expectations into the students. It is one of the best options for a behavior management method because it does not punish children, but instead allows for students displaying positive behavior to be rewarded. Watching other students receive prizes for good behavior motivates other students to follow after their behavior because they want to be rewarded too. Skinner advocated for immediate praise, feedback, and reward when seeking to change troublesome behaviors and to always encourage the correct behaviors in the classroom. Skinner referred to this philosophy as ‘radical behaviorism’. ​He suggested that the concept of “free will” is simply an illusion. ​All human reactions are based on a result of conditioning. Ginott’s ideas also supported the classroom management technique of positive reinforcement through the use of verbal praise. He suggested teachers use appreciative praise instead of evaluative praise. Appreciative praise is when you praise the child for what they have done, not their character.