Classroom Management

3. Reinforcement is the key to Skinners theory. A reinforcer is anything that strengthens the desired response

Skinner believed that behaviour is shaped and maintained by a reinforcing stimulus and that schedules of reinforcement are important factors in the learning process. There are many situations in the classroom where a behaviourist approach is likely to work well. For example, when I teach, I have started to pick out students who are making the right choices throughout the lesson. I call attention to the student who is doing the right thing and use verbal praise, which is quite an effective way to let other students realise what the expected learning behaviour is. The Year 6 students in the class are aware of the school’s reward system; ten credits lead to one merit, which is recorded in their merit book. They are also aware that bad behaviour in the class or on the playground will be followed by negative consequences. To warn against unwanted behaviour, I have seen teachers use negative reinforcers such as verbal warnings, timeouts and losing privileges.

I believe classroom management is extremely significant for teachers and effective teachers know how to manage the classroom while helping students to behave appropriately. In order to be an effective ESL teacher, I will use demonstrating expectations, creating a safe learning environment, building a positive relationship, redirecting inappropriate behavior, and motivating in managing my future classroom.

Creating my future classroom for first graders I chose rules that were similar to the SMART classroom management. The rules that I will put in place will target only behavior issues, separating my expectations in the classroom separately. This will allow less confusion for young students, as well as keeping it clear and simple for students to understand the rules themselves. Rules for my class room will be listen and follow carefully the instructions of the day, raise your hand before you speak or leave your seat, shows respect to others, keep hand, feet, and objects to oneself. I want to motivate students to make good choices, for each consequence students break the will have to think about their bad choice they made and how they can do things differently to improve their behavior. Behavior continue I would have to talk to student privately advising them that bad choices are being made and if they continue this route the next level would be contacting parents for bad choices made during class time. Either by sending a note for parent to sign or by phone.

Statement of Purpose: This classroom is a place where students can feel safe and comfortable with their learning abilities. Each student is expected to follow directions and be respectful to one another. This is an environment that is committed to providing students with the necessary skills to become successful in the future.

Classroom management is a popular topic in education. Teachers are always looking for ways to improve their classroom environment, or new ways to deal with problem behaviors. For every person who has ever worked with children, there is an idea, a theory, as to how to best meet children’s needs. Early theorists provide the basis for many current behavior management ideas, and often include a combination of ideas. Theorists such as Abraham Maslow, Rudolf Dreikurs, William Glasser, and Stanley Coppersmith offer insight into the behavior and motivations of children that help teachers design strategies to prevent disruption and provide a positive learning environment for all students.

The article I chose was “3 Things New Teachers Need to Know about Classroom Management” written by Ryan McCarty. The article is about three different points that McCarty thinks that all first year teachers should know. He wrote this article because he struggled with classroom management. The first tip McCarty writes, “Teach time-saving routines and procedures” (2014, para. 3). When teaching producers and routines at the beginning of the year never assume that the students know how to do basic producers. At the beginning of the year go over routines and produces, but then make the students practice them over and over again. The second tip that McCarty gives, “Balance Rules with Relationships” (2014, para. 5). McCarty wants new first year teachers

The idea behind reinforcement is that and action can be influenced by either a punishment or a reward. In the case of the Skinner box, the rat would do and action (press a lever) and would receive a reward (food) for performing the action. He got bolder with the idea. Skinner began to bring his findings into a classroom setting. He demonstrated that children would have more incentive to progress when they had a positive note when they got a question correct. It started with easier problems that they could already answer and moved to more difficult ones. The children started to show more growth in learning then they ever had before. Reinforcement is commonly used in schools today as a way to benefit

Math Sprint –Students will complete as many math facts as possible in a given amount of time. Sprints must be completed on a level 0. Crayons will be provided to each student to use while marking answers correct / incorrect. (10min)

My observations were done at an elementary school in an urban city. During the 2015-2016 school year, the report card states that there was a total attendance of six hundred-eighty-six students. Kindergarten consisted of hundred twenty-one students. There was a hundred twenty-nine first graders this year. Second grade had an enrollment of one hundred twenty-two students. Only ninety-seven students made up the third-grade class. One hundred and six students were enrolled into fourth grade. Lastly fifth grade had one hundred-eleven students. The school consisted of many different combinations of grades. While I observed the teacher, I witnessed how she addressed the different components found in a class.

According to Gewirtz and Peláez-Nogueras (1992), “B. F. Skinner contributed a great deal to advancing an understanding of basic psychological processes and to the applications of science-based interventions to problems of individual and social importance.” He contributed to “human and nonhuman behavior, including human behavioral development, and to various segments of the life span, including human infancy” (p. 1411). One of Skinner's greatest scientific discoveries was “single reinforcement” which became sufficient for “operant conditioning, the role of extinction in the discovery of intermittent schedules, the development of the method of shaping by successive approximation, and Skinner's break with and rejection of stimulus-response

In order to increase the desired behavior, we need to make compliance more reinforcing and non-compliance less reinforcing or punishing (Miltenberger, 2012); this can be done through the use of punishers in the way of removal of desired objects or the addition of non-desired items such as a parent overseeing her homework until she is on task, paired with reinforcing desired behaviors on a continuous rate of reinforcement and moving slowly to a variable interval rate of reinforcement as she becomes more successful (Miltenberger, 2012). After working with Trinity's parents utilizing a system of reinforcement for the desired behavior of compliance and punishment via removal of favored objects and added supervision, Trinity's compliance with demands has increase from a baseline of 20% to 80% since initiation of

There are 22 students in my second grade class. Of the 22 students, 11 are male and 11 are female. The demographics of the classroom are as follows: African American (9) 41%, Caucasian (8) 36%, Hispanic (2) 9%, Asian (2) 9%, and Multi-Racial (1) 4.5%. Two students come from families that receive an income below the poverty line. Every student in the class speaks English and there are two children with disabilities. One student has a 504 plan for ADHD and the other has a vision problem. My job is to make sure that the students feel safe and comfortable in my room. My room will be welcoming to parents and students. I will set a positive learning environment from the first day of school to make sure my students feel safe, comfortable, and engaged. Wong and Wong (2009) stated that, “The most important day of a person’s education is the First Day of School, not Graduation Day” (p. 45).

B.F. Skinner’s operant conditioning theory proposes that the voluntary responses of people are strengthened when reinforced by rewards and weakened when they are ignored or punished. Related to students, Skinner developed programmed instruction, in which students were given positive reinforcement for correct responses, motivating the student to proceed with desired consequences.

Skinner’s positive reinforcement starts by promoting good behavior in the classroom through the promise of a reward. Skinner created a rewards system that is said to help shape human behavior in a