Don’t Depend on Teacher Training Programs: Classroom Management and Students’ (Virtual) Academic Engagement and Learning

Districts Need to Reconceptualize their School Discipline Approaches—For Equity, Excellence, and Effectiveness

[CLICK HERE for the Full Blog Article]

Introduction

  This past week, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) released its 2020 Teacher Prep Review: Clinical Practice & Classroom Management, an analysis of how over a thousand elementary teacher preparation programs train, supervise, and certify their graduates in five research-based strategies that are essential to classroom management. The NCTQ Report compared its current results with its past 2013 and 2016 results and reports.

  The five research-based classroom management strategies studied were:

• Establishing rules and routines that set expectations for behavior;
•  Maximizing learning time;
• Reinforcing positive behavior;
• Redirecting off-task behavior without interrupting instruction; and
• Addressing serious misbehavior with consistent, respectful, and appropriate consequences. 

  Critically, these are the bare essential strategies needed for effective classroom management.

  While their presence increases the probability that a teacher can establish the positive classroom climate and control needed to maximize students’ academic engagement and learning, this still is not ensured. Indeed, classroom management is more than just these five strategies. Moreover, in the absence of teachers’ effective curricular preparation and pedagogically-sound instruction, the achievement needed by all students simply will not occur.

  Added to this, given the current pandemic, is classroom management and effective instruction in both on-site/physically present and off-site/virtual settings.

  But let’s stay within the confines of the NCTQ Report right now.

  And, for the record, know that the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit research and policy organization committed to modernizing the teaching profession. It accepts no funding from the federal government, and it routinely conducts research to assist states, districts, and teacher preparation programs with teacher quality issues.

[CLICK HERE for the NCTQ Report]

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  Relative to the NCTQ’s 2020 Clinical Practice & Classroom Management Report—which evaluated 979 traditional teacher preparation programs (typically housed in universities) and 40 alternative preparation programs, there were a number of important outcomes—that focused both on how many programs were training students in the five strategies above, and on how many programs were involved in the selection of mentors who supervised their interns in the field.

[CLICK HERE for the Full Blog Article that Summarizes these Outcomes]

  Based on the results, the most conservative conclusions from this study are:

• Newly graduating and certified or licensed elementary classroom teachers are clinically unprepared in basic classroom management, climate enhancement, and student engagement skills.
• Based on this and studies dating back to the 1980s, virtually all of the elementary classroom teachers in our classrooms today have never received the formal pre-service training or supervision needed for immediate classroom management success.
• Districts cannot depend on teacher preparation programs to change.

Indeed, “past (ineffective) training and supervision behavior predicts future (ineffective) behavior.”

  Thus, Districts must provide the hands-on professional development, training, and supervision needed to ensure that all of their teachers learn, master, and consistently demonstrate the classroom management skills needed for student and teacher success.

  And yet, we also know that the needed professional development, training, and supervision is not happening in most districts, and that many students are negatively impacted because of this.

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The Inequity Implications of Poor Classroom Management

  There is no need to rehash the extensive body of research-to-practice studies that address what occurs when teachers have ineffective classroom management skills—especially due to inadequate pre-service and post-certification training and supervision.

  Some of the most notable outcomes include:

• Classroom climates that range from neutral to negative to toxic
• Poor student-teacher and student-student relationships and interactions
• Student responses that range from disengagement to class/school skipping to chronic absenteeism
• Teacher responses that range from disengagement to teacher absences to teacher resignations
• Less effective to impaired student learning, mastery, and proficiency
• Increases in inappropriate student classroom behavior that often results in disproportionate office discipline referrals and suspensions for students of color and students with disabilities

  All of these outcomes are notable for all students. And while there are many teachers across the country who have excellent classroom management and instructional skills, many of them “learned their craft” over a period of years.

  But—not to be critical—how many students did not receive the excellence that these teachers now provide during their “learning years?”

  And, how many teachers still have not attained this level of excellence. . . and are negatively impacting their students, colleagues, and schools in the ways delineated above?

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Another Recent Report on Inequity

  As above, the issue of inequity is clearly “on the table” when we discuss teachers’ (lack of) classroom management skills.

  This is because it is well-established that students of color and with disabilities often receive more extreme responses (i.e., being sent to the Principal’s Office, and being suspended) for the same (often low-level) classroom behavior issues as their white peers (who receive more relationship-related responses).

  While classroom management training and application necessarily intersect with teachers’ training and understanding of how to interact with students of different cultures, races, and disabilities, the disproportionate data are irrefutable.

  And at this time when schools and districts need to address the racial inequities of the past (along with inequities related to students’ socio-economic and disability status), the area of school discipline, classroom management, and student self-management should be at the top of this list.

  This has, once again, been reinforced by a new report from the UCLA Civil Rights Project (October 11, 2020), Lost Opportunities: How Disparate School Discipline Continues to Drive Difference in the Opportunity to Learn.

[CLICK HERE for this Report]

  The Report concluded:

  “In all districts, including those that show a decline in the student suspension rate, policymakers, advocates, and educators must pay closer attention to the rates of lost instruction for students at the secondary level, the use of suspension in alternative schools, and the use of referrals to law enforcement as a response to student misconduct in school. The data analyzed in this report, all of which was collected by the U.S. Department of Education, reveal deeply disturbing disparities and demonstrate how the frequent use of suspension contributes to inequities in the opportunity to learn.”

[CLICK HERE for the Full Blog Article that Details the Specific Results from this Report]

  We conclude:

  There are many possible inter-related factors that contribute to the outcomes described in the Report above. They include: (a) inequitable or insufficient school funding, (b) poorly designed or ineffectively implemented district and school discipline policies and practices, (c) poor or underfunded multi-tiered intervention systems for students with challenging behavior, or (d) institutional or implicit bias or prejudice.

  But, to return to today’s theme, we need to disaggregate these factors, and take action in areas that produce tangible student and staff results, while moderating the negative impact of the factors above.

  Critically, improving and enhancing teachers’ classroom management skills is one essential area of action.

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The Classroom Management Skills in Effective Classrooms

  As noted earlier, effective classroom management consists of more than the five strategies investigated in the NCTQ Report described above. So, let’s look at some of the critical, evidence-based teacher skills and interactions that better define this area.

  To guide and maximize this discussion, we will use Charlotte Danielson’s Framework for Teaching—highlighting the domains and components most relevant to effective classroom management. This research-based blueprint was chosen because it is still the teacher evaluation foundation for many states and districts across the country.

  But before taking this “deeper dive,” it must be emphasized that the research-based classroom management skills below are presented not for the purpose of teacher evaluation. They are detailed to encourage districts and schools to include them as primary professional development, coaching, and mentoring targets for new (and existing) teachers.

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Danielson’s Classroom Management-Related Domains

  While effective and exciting curriculum and instruction are integral to classroom management given their effects on student motivation and engagement, seven Danielson components within three domains most directly relate to classroom management.

  They are:

Domain 1. Planning and Preparation

  1b. Demonstrating Knowledge of Students

Domain 2. The Classroom Environment

  2a. Creating a Climate of Respect and Rapport

  2b. Creating a Culture of Learning

  2c. Managing Classroom Procedures

  2d. Managing Student Behavior

Domain 3: Instruction

  3a. Communication with Students

  3c. Engaging Students in Learning

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  It is critical to understand the details in each of these Framework for Teaching components.

[CLICK HERE for the Full Blog Article with Detailed Descriptions of these Seven Components]

  Summary. When teachers consistently and continuously demonstrate these skills and interactions, their classrooms are organized and predictable, expectations are clear and internalized, students are engaged and motivated, and learning is safe, interactive, and maximized.

  When districts and schools provide, for new and existing teachers, explicit and ongoing professional development, coaching, and mentoring in the classroom management areas above, not only do more teachers succeed more quickly in their classrooms, but the teacher evaluation process is seen more as a professional growth vehicle, than an administrative appraisal requirement.

  And, when all of this integrates together, the impact of any teacher preparation gaps in classroom management are minimized, and the issue of student inequity—at least as represented in the disproportionate treatment of students from poverty, of color, and with disabilities—begins to be functionally addressed.

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How Do We Get There?

  From a school-wide perspective, classroom management must be integrated into a multi-tiered continuum that begins with (a) school climate, safety and discipline; moves through (b) classroom management, grade-level collaboration, and student-teacher interactions; and finishes with (c) students’ social, emotional, and behavioral self-management.

  While there are many social-emotional learning and/or positive behavioral support frameworks—most have not been field-tested so that the science-to-practice elements that result in consistent, cross-country student, staff, and school success are unknown.

  Below are the evidence-based psychoeducational components of effective school discipline, classroom management, and student self-management from Project ACHIEVE (www.projectachieve.info), a school improvement model that was designated a national evidence-based exemplar by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in 2000.

  Project ACHIEVE continues to be implemented across the country. For example, it is the implementation model for five School Climate Transformation Grants, awarded by the U.S. Department of Education; and it has received over $40 million in federal, state, and foundation grant funding over the past 40 years.

  Briefly, the science-to-practice components of a successful school discipline, classroom management, and student self-management process include the following:

• Positive School Climate and Prosocial Relationships
• Clear Behavioral Expectations and Student-Focused Social Skills Instruction
• Behavioral Accountability and Motivation
• Consistent Implementation Across All Other Components
• Implementation Across Settings, Peers, and Students with Specialized Needs

  From a student perspective, the primary goals of this process is for all students to learn, master, and be able to apply—from preschool through high school—the interpersonal, social problem-solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and emotional control, communication, and coping skills needed to be successful.

[CLICK HERE for the Full Blog Article that Describes these Five Components in Detail]

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Summary

  This Blog reviewed two major reports released within the past two weeks: (a) the National Council on Teacher Quality’s 2020 Teacher Prep Review: Clinical Practice & Classroom Management; and (b) the UCLA Civil Rights Project’s Lost Opportunities: How Disparate School Discipline Continues to Drive Difference in the Opportunity to Learn.

  After analyzing the results in these reports, we concluded that:

• District cannot depend on teacher training programs to prepare their graduates in the areas of classroom management.

Thus, Districts must provide the hands-on professional development, training, and supervision needed to ensure that all of their teachers learn, master, and consistently demonstrate the classroom management skills needed for student and teacher success.

• Poor classroom management skills can negatively impact classroom climate, student-teacher and student-student relationships and interactions, student engagement and motivation to attend, teacher engagement and staying in the profession, and student behavior and disproportionate office discipline referrals and suspensions for students of color and students with disabilities.
• Relative to the latter area, and at this time when the racial inequities of the past (along with inequities related to students’ socio-economic and disability status) need to be explicitly addressed, schools and districts must target the area of school discipline, classroom management, and student self-management in their professional development, coaching, and mentoring programs.

  To facilitate this, we then used Charlotte Danielson’s Framework for Teaching to highlight the domains and components most relevant to effective classroom management. But, knowing that Danielson is used by many districts across the country for teacher evaluation, we emphasized that our discussions was focused on teacher skills and growth, not teacher appraisal and oversight.

  Finally, we put the entire discussion into a school-wide systemic context by describing the evidence-based psychoeducational components of effective school discipline, classroom management, and student self-management from Project ACHIEVE (www.projectachieve.info), a school improvement model that was designated a national evidence-based exemplar by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in 2000.

  These science-to-practice components are:

• Positive School Climate and Prosocial Relationships
• Clear Behavioral Expectations and Student-Focused Social Skills Instruction
• Behavioral Accountability and Motivation
• Consistent Implementation Across All Other Components
• Implementation Across Settings, Peers, and Students with Specialized Needs

  As noted earlier, when teachers consistently and continuously demonstrate effective classroom management skills and interactions, their classrooms are organized and predictable, expectations are clear and internalized, students are engaged and motivated, and learning is safe, interactive, and maximized.

  When districts and schools provide explicit and ongoing professional development, coaching, and mentoring in classroom management, not only do more teachers succeed more quickly in their classrooms, but the teacher evaluation process is seen more as a professional growth vehicle, than an administrative appraisal requirement.

  And, when all of this integrates together, the impact of any teacher preparation gaps in classroom management are minimized, and the issue of student inequity—at least as represented in the disproportionate treatment of students from poverty, of color, and with disabilities—begins to be functionally addressed.

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  As always, I hope that this Blog has provided some explicit and practical guidance and direction in a critical area of school and classroom need.

  For those schools and teachers who are successful in this area, I applaud you. But for the schools and teachers who know that they “can do better,” this Blog provides the evidence-based roadmaps toward growth and improvement.

  I appreciate the time that you invested in reading this Blog, and hope that you, your students, your colleagues, and your community continues to be safe and protected during these challenging times.

  And please know that I continue to work—especially virtually—with districts and schools across the country. . . helping them to maximize their school discipline, classroom management, and student self-management practices and activities.

  Feel free to contact me at any time. The first one-hour conversation with your team is complimentary.

Read the entire Blog. What do you think?

[CLICK HERE for the Full Blog Article]