Essential Skills for Classroom Management
ESCM 1: Establishing Expectations
My Journey to the ESCMs
ESCM 2: Instruction Giving
- Dad is a principal of an indigenous school in NT
- Met Mark Davidson at a conference where he was talking about classroom profiling
- Asked if it work in a school like his
- He became a profiler
- Values it so much that all his teachers are now profilers
- Sent me to the course in Brisbane a couple of weeks ago
- It is important to have clear boundaries for social behaviour so that everyone is clear about what is, and what is not, regarded as responsible and safe in a particular context
- Best to work out rules/consequences (+ve & -ve) in a class meeting
- Publish the rules and consequences where students can see them
- Have positive descriptors with the rules, avoid "don't" or "no"
- Refer to the rules often
- Model, model, model
- Greet your students formally or informally before you begin instruction and when you're dealing with late students. Remember greet them, deal with the lateness at an appropriate time.
- Clear, short instructions help students understand what you expect them to do
- Use instructions for "have to" tasks. Give choices for optional tasks
- Make your curriculum and behaviour expectations clear when giving instructions
- What it is you expect
- Why it is important
- And how they are going to achieve your expectation
- Use "thanks" rather than "please" at the end of an instruction for a crisper, less question like tone
What are the ESCM's about, and what is a profiler
Process of Instruction Giving
1. Attention getting (non-verbal directional action or oral directional phrase)
2. Give the instruction
3. Wait and scan
4. Descriptively encourage 2 students
5. If necessary, move towards a student who is not ready and in close proximity warn/give choice
6. If necessary follow through
- The ESCM's are a set of skills to employ in your classroom that will help to maintain overall classroom management
- A profiler is someone who observes what is going on in a class and takes real data
- The data is both student behaviours and teacher strategies
- It also looks at gender to see if there is a balance in the class
- Works from preschool to senior high school levels
ESCM 4: Cueing with Parallel Acknowledgement
ESCM 3: Waiting & Scanning
ESCM 7: Selective Attending
- It avoids unintentionally reinforcing off-task of disruptive behaviour. It decreases the likelihood that this behaviour will be repeated.
- Gives you time to think of how to handle the behaviour
- Gives you time to attend to those on task
- Do it when the student is choosing off-task behaviour that is not seriously disturbing to others
- Gives the students time to process the direction
- Prior to waiting and scanning, securing students attention is important, how?
Hints
- If students are not following many of your instructions, evaluate your waiting and scanning
- You may perceive the time spent waiting is longer than it is
- Don't be concerned with "wasting time" using this
- If students aren't following your instructions you are wasting time anyway
- If you do not wait and scan your instructions a likely to be ignored
- It cues other students to match the behaviour that is being acknowledged
- More effective with younger students can still work in secondary
- Scan the group regularly. When students are off task, choose to acknowledge someone in close proximity who is on task
- Acknowledge that person with a descriptive encourager in a loud enough voice for the others to hear
- I like the way that...
- Look at...
- I love the way that...
- This group...
- That group...
- Non-verbal language of parallel encouraging, raise hand when asking a question
- Michael is writing
- Ben he is staying in his seat reading