Promoting Academic Success Via Classroom Structure

Promoting Academic Success PAGE 1

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Promoting Academic Success via Classroom Structure

Kathy Ruhl

PennState

Abstract

One way to encourage students to stay connected and in school is to create welcoming environments. Welcoming environments are those that have clear guidelines for success and consistent expectations and follow through. This session includes techniques for improving classroom environment and student behavior to optimize learning via clear communication of expectations in the classroom setting.

Narrative of Presentation

If you have ever attended a function such as a party or business meeting and dreaded attending because you were not sure what would occur there or how to act, you can understand how some students feel about school experiences. You probably continue to put yourself in somewhat novel situations because you have had sufficient experience to learn that you do have the skills needed to be successful in those situations and that you are able to figure out what is acceptable and what is not. Not all students feel this way about returning to school. They do not feel successful there and one of the outcomes is that they stop attending.

This presentation is about helping students feel comfortable in educational settings. It is about helping them know what they should be doing so they can focus on their learning and not be concerned about how to behave.

We tend to think of students dropping out during their last years of high school, but many are lost long before that. Indeed, one important research finding is that early identification is vital to effective drop out prevention. Problems with social and task-related behaviors that are not addressed develop into school adjustment problems. These can be identified in the early elementary grades and of course the earlier the intervention the better. So the dropout problem is not one that should be addressed solely at the secondary level because by then it may be too late for some students.

There is a lot in the education literature on different models of drop out prevention. Some of these models include intervention in the earliest possible years, in preschool or kindergartens, while others target older students moving to middle school and beyond. Some models include alternative classrooms or whole programs serving any number of districts.

The big idea here is that regardless of the age level of students who are targeted for intervention, it is important to encourage students to continue to return to school by creating a welcoming environment there. In order to feel welcome, students must feel safe. Often when we think about a safe environment, what comes to mind is a school climate that does not tolerate bullying and intimidation. Indeed, students who are physically afraid often stay away from school.

But safety in a learning environment must also include a sense of security about being able to pursue academic achievement and aspiring to meet high standards, and all that goes along with that. This includes being able to commit errors that are seen only as mistakes of learning and not really big issues.

The role of the educator in contributing to a safe and welcoming environment is critical. We are able, and indeed it is our responsibility, to provide a structure that clearly articulates and supports expectation for successful demonstration of appropriate behavior. One can provide structure in many ways: Careful scheduling, room arrangement, and clearly communicating what behavioral expectations you have in your classroom and supporting those with consistent actions.

This is important for all children and youth, but it is especially important for those with special needs who do not typically learn through casual observation. Student with special needs typically require a more explicit approach to learning and instruction, even those who are of high school age.

We cannot assume that a student who has been attending school for many years knows what she needs to do in order to be successful in an academic setting. Indeed some students come from families in which the attitudes toward school are counter to those needed for success, consequently they do not observe behaviors or hear discussed, the kinds of actions that lead to success in school and into adulthood.

This makes it critical to clearly communicate to students the many behaviors needed to earn success within and across different instructional activities.

You can take action to promote academic success via the way in which you structure the learning environment. What is important to recognize is that it is not so much the specifics of that structure that is important, rather it is the clear communication of that structure and affiliated expectations that is critical.

We know from years of teacher effectiveness literature that the most effective teachers know and convey to their students what students need to do to earn success in their classes, at elementary and secondary levels. Older students, those with longer histories, may indeed be more challenged because they have experienced so many different classrooms and individual teachers.

The behaviors that earn success in a class vary with teacher and subject area. Students pass through the education system and are repeatedly confronted with new teachers and content. There is no set of behaviors that earn success in all classrooms. Therefore you need to identify these as they apply in your classroom and teach them to your students every year.

So how do we go about establishing and communicating structure?

There are two principal efforts in establishing structure:

• Clarifying your expectations and
• Organizing the environment so that it supports students meeting those expectations.

Much of these occur before the school year begins, at the preplanning stage, but they are critical for operating a classroom environment conducive to student willingness to participate in his/her own learning.

Structure: Conveying and Supporting Expectations

Identifying where you want your students to end up, enables you to communicate that to them and teach them how to get there. As special educators you are generally aware of the importance of goals for students. What I am talking about here isbroader in that they apply to everyone in your room. We have the technology/methods to help students achieve our expectations. But before we begin to apply these methods, we need to clarify for ourselves and then for students, what those expectations are. If we’re unclear about our expectations, how can we expect our students to be clear?

There are many aspects of establishing, clarifying, and communicating expectations. This is a funneling down approach beginning very globally and ending more specifically.

In order to establish and communicate structure you need to:

• Identify the major instructional and behavioral goals you want to accomplish. (Long range goals)
• Highlight the ways students can be successful in your classroom (Success Principles)
• Spell out the rules
• Distinguish among varying expectations
• Work out key Procedures or Routines
• Convey all of this to students through directly teaching them, and by arranging the physical space and schedule of activities in ways that support behaviors that meet expectations.

First, recognize your long-range goals.

Long range goals focus on what you want your students to be able to do at the end of the year as the result of having been in your class.

There are academic/instructional goals and behavioral/social goals.

Academic/instructional goals: are related to what students will be able to do better or differently in terms of the academic content you will cover.

Behavioral/social goals: have to do with the attitudes/traits you hope to promote in your students.

Having your goals specified will help you stay on track. Sometimes you get so immersed in day-to-day life in the classroom that you lose sight of where you’re hoping to be. If you know where you want your students to end up,

you will look for instances of behavior that is effective in reaching those goals and point those (behaviors) out.

If you find ineffective behaviors you can redirect them toward those that will sustain the goal with an intervention and get students back on course.

(Focusing on goals takes the values out of any specific behavior as being

good or bad and but shifts the emphasis on the behavior as being in/effective towards achieving goals.)

For example, if you have goals for students to (1) Develop written expression to communicate in narrative style or (2) Learn to work cooperatively in groups when you see students exhibiting a behavior (academic or social) that is heading in a direction that is off course you can give them feedback to get them back on track. Specifying your goals, helps you know what’s important and what’s not.

If you don’t know where you want to end up, how can you expect your students to know?

Once you have identified your goals, You may or may not choose to post these goals in your room but you should definitely put them somewhere that

you will be forced to review them frequently to be sure your actions are supporting movement toward those goals. You should at least consider sharing these goals with your students on the first day of school and whenever you get a new student in your room.

If you have high turnover rates (as is often the case in districts with high drop out rates) you should come up with a way to share these with students that does not require a lot of your time. This is discussed briefly later in this document.

Identify and Outline Principles for success. Highlight the ways students can be successful in your classroom

Articulating ways students can be successful in your class is especially important for classrooms in which there are multiple students who have many needs. It is your responsibility to inform students that you believe they can be successful and what actions lead to being successful.

You need to communicate to the student’ssuccess principles

(You can call these anything you want. Roadmap, Guidelines, Recipe, Formula, Prescription, etc.),

Your principles for success should include general descriptions of the fundamental attitudes and courses of action that will help students achieve the long-range goals.

As will become apparent shortly, these are different from rules. Rules specify behaviors.

Principles for Success clarify what students need to do generally to be successful in attaining the goals you’ve set. Again, this is not an emphasis on good or bad, but on how to be successful.

When formulating success principles ask "what are values, the ideals, about learning (and life) I want my students to learn from me"? What are the attitudes you hope their behavior will reflect? Specify these as brief, descriptive statements of attributes/demeanor/behaviors you want to encourage in your students being careful to use active verbs (e.g. be, do, etc.) Some teachers develop an mnemonic to help them and students remember the principles.

You should plan on sharing these with students on the first day of the school year and

refer to them periodically.

My tips for success for being an effective teacher include:

Be Responsible

Be Clear and consistent

Be Guided by data

Be Approachable and humane

The next activity that you want to undertake is to develop and specify your classroom rules.

You want to create rules that support positive classroom behaviors and to do this you should: anticipate what misbehaviors are most likely to occur and

incorporate those in your rules.

Rules are statements that delineate specific behaviors for which there will be consequences. Rules are more objective descriptions than just principles for success. They also usually apply across the board and are not activity specific.

Two examples of rules are:

Arrive on time with all your materials

Follow directions immediately.

Rules serve as a basis for consequences for behavior. A rule without a consequence is like a speed limit without a fine. It is important that there are both positive and negative consequences.

Here are some rules for making rules:

Content should:

Address potential chronic or severe misbehaviors.

Define functional behaviors

Formulate rules by:

Being short and specific: Describe observable behaviors

Stating in the positive: Focus on behaviors you want to see.

Keeping to few in number (7 or fewer)

Making statements Vs requests

As noted earlier, it is important to have positive as well as negative consequences for your rules. All behaviors have effects on the environment in some way. There are outcomes. Sometimes we choose those outcomes sometimes not.

In classrooms, the most effective consequences are those that can, and are, delivered consistently and with minimal delay. When a student follows a rule, he should receive some positive comment or sign that you noticed (this will of course only be effective if the student values your attention). Something recognizably positive should occur as a result of students rule abiding behaviors.

The reality is that we live in a society based on laws that have predetermined, negative consequences. The positive consequence of being a law abiding citizen is that we maintain our freedom, hang onto our income, and are generally well regarded by our peers. If however, we break a law, there is some consequence that we must face. If we speed and do so repeatedly (and are caught) we will eventually forfeit our driver’s license.

Indeed there is some argument for human behavior being guided primarily by negative reinforcement or avoidance behavior in which we engage in desired behaviors only because they let us avoid or escape some more aversive situation. Because of that, we should have some mildly aversive consequence for rules in addition to the positive consequences.

When a rule infraction occurs, some predetermined (therefore predictable) negative consequence should be instituted. When planning consequences be sure to make them relevant to the rule that was broken. They should be obligatory in nature.

For example, if a student breaks a rule on coming to class on time by coming in late, therefore interrupting instruction for everyone else, that student should owe you some time. It may not be, and indeed need not be, a tit for-tat situation. If the student is 5 minutes late, he might owe you 2.5 minutes of wait time after the other students have left. This can seem like a long time even to an adolescent.

If there are small, nuisance behaviors covered by rules you may want to use a system of demerits in which the behavior earns one demerit and it is only if a predetermined number of demerits are earned within a specified period of time that the demerits lead to some predetermined consequence.

Again, it is worthwhile to stress that it is just as important, if not more so have positive consequences for rule compliance.

After you have clarified your goals and identified principles of success and the rules, you need to pay careful attention to behaviors that are more situation specific.

Clarify Essential Behaviors for Specific Activities.

Whereas Principles for Success and Rules apply generally across the board and to all situations, there are going to be times when certain student behaviors are productive and times when they are not. It is important you spend time determining this and communicating it. You need to identify the essential behaviors for various activities during the school day.

The school day is divided into a series of activities and transitions between those activities. There are instructional activities such as: Teacher-Directed large group, independent/Individual, and cooperative groups. There are assessment activities such as quizzes and tests. And finally there are transitions including Out-of-seat individual (Entering class. Moving between groups. Storing materials) or Whole group, and In-seat (Getting out materials, Changing texts)

Appropriate, learning, behaviors vary with the nature of the activity or transition, but within any transition or activity students have the opportunity to:

• be engaged or not
• interact with others verbally appropriately or inappropriately
• remain seated or in assigned area or be out of seat/area, and
• find they are uncertain about something, have questions.

In some situations, talking to peers is acceptable, in others it may not be.

Again there are no hard and fast rules for this. What is important is that you communicate the differences in expectations for essential behaviors to students so they do not have to keep trying to figure out what is expected/acceptable by testing the waters. It is also important that once you have communicated these, you are consistent in supporting them. You do not want to send an inconsistent message.