Student Intervention: Case Study #1

A couple years ago, I had been teaching an 8^th grade science class. In the back of the class sat a student, who never seemed to take class seriously. She was always talking to her friends, drawing in her notes, or sneaking text messages on her cell phone. I spoke to her parents about her behavior and they expressed the same frustration with her at home. Her grades were quickly declining, so I scheduled a parent meeting and discussed the option of afterschool tutoring. Shortly after, I began meeting with the student afterschool and tutoring her in science. A couple weeks had passed and I noticed something. She had a difficult time reading the material. I realized this after having her read one of the paragraphs aloud. I asked her about her ability to read, and she said that she needed help, but was too embarrassed to ask for help. She didn’t want her friends to make fun of her. Then, I noticed something else. Whenever I wrote anything on the marker board, I saw her straining her eyes to see what I wrote. I had her sit closer. She had to move to the front row to clearly see what I had written on the board. I asked her about her vision and she admitted that her vision was poor. She said that her parents had been struggling financially and she didn’t want to ask them to buy her glasses. I continued to tutor her afterschool, but I also made a few changes to my classroom. Since she didn’t want to lose her status among her friends, I moved all the students around and arranged it so that her group was closer to the front. I also planned my teaching to incorporate more group collaboration and rely more on reciprocated teaching. This not only helped her improve her grades in class, but it made the topic more engaging for everyone. By the end of the school year, she became one of my top performing students.

Classroom Management: Social Contracts

Along with involving students in the selection of topics to be covered, I would also involve them in developing behavior guidelines for the class. According to Marzano, Marzano, and Pickering (2009, p. 13), “Probably the most obvious aspect of effective classroom management involves the design and implementation of classroom rules and procedures.” In their book, Discipline with Dignity, Curwin, Mendler, and Mendler (2008, p. 68) agree with the importance of involving student in the development of the classroom rules and procedures, introducing their view of the classroom rules and procedures as a social contract, “The social contract is an agreement between teacher and students about the values, rules, and consequences for classroom behavior.” Using a social contract would not only increase student responsibility, but it would also affect their academic achievement.

Resources

• Curwin, R., Mendler, A., & Mendler, B. (2008). Discipline with dignity: New challenges, new solutions (3rd ed.). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
  
• Marzano, R., Marzano, J., & Pickering, D. (2009). Classroom management that works. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education Inc.
  

Classroom Management: Student Involvement

Classroom management is essential in providing students with an environment that is conducive to learning. According to Marzano and Marzano (2003), “One of the classroom teacher’s most important jobs is managing the classroom effectively.” There are several factors that highly impact the effectiveness of how a classroom is managed. First, the teacher must utilize instructional strategies and curriculum design that foster student engagement and accommodate the students’ learning needs, “Effective instructional strategies and good classroom curriculum design are built on the foundation of effective classroom management” (Marzano, Marzano, & Pickering, 2009, p. 4). While the teacher should be knowledgeable of current pedagogical trends, it is important that the students understand the instructional strategies being used and participate in planning the curriculum to be covered. By involving students in the selection of the topics to be covered, the students are more intrinsically motivated to participate in the lessons. Likewise, the number of topics decreases, allowing for deeper exploration of each topic. According to Glasser’s concept of a quality curriculum, “Quality learning requires depth of understanding together with a good grasp of its usefulness. Learning a smaller number of topics very well is always preferable to covering many topics superficially,” (Charles, 2005, p. 78). In fact, fewer topics allow for greater clarity and specificity.

 

Resources

• Charles, C. (2005). Building Classroom Discipline (10th Edition)
• Marzano, R., & Marzano, J. (2003). The key to classroom management. Building classroom relationships, 6(1).
• Marzano, R., Marzano, J., & Pickering, D. (2009). Classroom management that works: Research-based strategies for every teacher.