Classroom Management Strategies

The K-12 Curriculum is student-centered, thus the pupil is at the center and is the recipient of knowledge, skills and who’s necessary for lifelong learning. He is empowered through active involvement and participation in class activities.

On the outside rings are the teaching practices and reinforcement techniques These two affect the teaching-learning process that the pupil goes through They have a great impact on the child’s development.

In turn, the teaching practices and reinforcement techniques also affected by the educational theories like behaviourism, socio-cultural theory, classical conditioning theory, operant conditioning theory, social learning theory and others. To sum up, the theories, teaching practices and reinforcement techniques

(Hattie: 2009) Effective teaching and learning cannot take place in poorly managed classrooms (Jones and Jones: 2012; Marzano and Pickering: 2008) Classroom management strategies seem to focus on preventive rather than reactive classroom management procedures. An example of a widely used and generally effective- preventive strategy among teachers in primary education is that classroom rules are negotiated instead of imposed. Teachers, however also frequently use reactive strategies like punishing disruptive students (Rydell and Henricson: 2004; whereas it is unclear whether these strategies effectively change students behaviour.

According to Van de Grift and Van de Wal: (2011) classroom management of student conduct are skills that teachers acquire and hone overtime. Effective teaching requires considerable skill in managing the myriad of tasks and situations that occur at the classroom each day. Skills such as effective classroom management are central to teaching and require that teachers understand in more than one way the psychological and developmental levels of their

Banduras work is related to the theories of Vygotsky which also emphasize the central role of social learning (www. instructional design.org/theme/social learning-html). The Social Learning Theory occurs when an observer’s behavior changes after viewing a behavioral model. An observer’s behavior it can be affected by the positive or negative consequences called vicarious reinforcement or vicarious punishment of a model’s behaviour.

The Control Theory of Motivation proposed by William Glasser contends that behavior is never caused by response to an outside stimulus. Instead, the behavior is inspired by what a person wants most at any given time.

Glasser contends that all living creatures “control” their behavior to maximize their need satisfaction. According to Glasser, if students are motivated to do their schoolwork, it’s because they view this as irrelevant to their basic needs.

Glasser identifies two types of teachers: 1) Boss teachers to use rewards and punishment to coerce students to comply with rules and complete required