Establishing a Positive Classroom Climate

Establishing a Positive Classroom Climate

In my 15+ years of teaching I have never really had too much trouble with my classroom.  With that has always come the question from fellow teachers, administrators and even parents & students: how do you do it?  What is your strategy?  Quite frankly, I had no idea, I just did what I thought was right and how I thought I would like my classroom to be if I were the student.  The problem with that, I know notice is that it comes with the assumption that all students are like me and that cultural differences do not exist.  While my classroom management style was working and there appeared to be a positive classroom climate to me and perhaps the majority of my students, it was not sure for all.

Where I teach, South Korea, most if not all of my students are from a cultural background different than me.  I have a large group of Korean students, a few American students, and one from each of the Ukraine, China, and Taiwan.  The first thing that I need to do in order to establish a positive classroom climate for this class is recognize that my cultural ways are not always the right way and that there is a beauty in the diversity that is my classroom.  I need to learn about the students and their culture to see what it is they care about.  How to they learn and what it and is not acceptable in classroom relationships.  I like to tell jokes in class, often at my own expenses.  This, however, is not something that is seen as normal in the Ukraine, where my student would often stand like a solider to speak or respond to my questions.  For her the classroom was a serious place of learning and for a teacher not to be serious was very difficult for her.  I had to get rid of the cultural bias that many westerners have about Asian students and how incredibly smart and hard working they are.  While, yes, many of my Asian students are very hard working and very bright, not all are and some really do struggle in math.  Assumptions that the Asian kid does not need help in math is just down right wrong!  (I learned that within weeks of coming to Asia).  Another assumption that needs to be thwarted is that all students who attend private international school as wealthy and have no issues at home.  This assumption is common when students are acting up in class.  I have often heard teachers say things like, "Johnny should not be acting this way.  His family is very rich and he wants for nothing."  The problem here is that while Johnny might be from a rich family, his parents might work long hours and he has to cook and clean for himself, or he has a nanny that does everything for him, but he is lacking the affection of a parent.  And then there is the assumption that Johnny is rich only because he attends this school.  The fact is that many parents

Understanding every culture and situation in your classroom can be a daunting task.  There are, however, some simple things that a teacher can do to establish a positive classroom climate.  Those, as highlighted by Marzano (2007) as well as in an article on Teaching Tolerance (2014) are as follows:

• Greet your students, by name, as they come into the classroom;
• Arrange the desks in the classroom so that is fosters collaboration, but not so that the student(s) cannot see the front of the classroom;
• Decorate your classroom with authentic materials such as student work.  This ensures that all the decorations reflect the diversity of the classroom.
• Place identified students with needs in places where they can be support (i.e. not the back of the room);
• Establish an appropriate relationship with your students
• let them know some things about you;
• learn somethings about them (likes, dislikes, interests, family, etc)
• keep your cool while being firm about the classroom expectations;
• make the learning student centred;
• interact with students outside of the classroom (take in one of their games or activities);
• Use what you know about the students to you advantage in not only the teaching a learning, but in the classroom management techniques you use.

In addition to understanding my students as highlighted above and the simple classroom strategies, there is a need for a teacher to be willing to deal with bullying.  Bullying is real, it happens all the time, and in every class.  Pacer's National Bullying Prevention Centre estimates the in schools this year about 22% of students will be bullied.  With the risk including depression, anxiety, sleep difficulties, poor school performance and even suicide, it is imperative that any classroom also be a place where the teacher confronts bullying head on.  First, the teacher needs to have clear guidelines that are in line with school policy (as applicable).  Additionally, and in line with much of what I have discussed above, there is a need for the teacher to be a person that a victim is comfortable coming to and speaking about the bullying situation.  There has to be a relationship built such that the teacher, when he/she notices or suspects someone is being bullied, is able to approach the student and talk about it.  If students have the trust in the teacher, as developed using much of the strategies above, then something can be done about.  The teacher must not ignore it because bullying is hard thing to deal with.  The teacher must not assume that it is not happening in his or her classroom because he or she do not see it.  Much of the bullying now happens online or outside of the school walls and cannot be easily detected unless you know the signs.  For that reason the teacher must learn the signs that someone is being bullied.

Building positive relationships can go a long way in creating a positive classroom environment.  It does not mean that you cannot create and enforce rules or that you need to be nice all the time.  It simply means that you must be firm and consistent with the rules while understanding and respecting all the characteristics of your students.  A teacher needs to be caring, understanding, respectful, hard-working, consistent, etc in order to be effective.

References

Marzano, Robert.  (2007).  The Art and Science of Teaching.  ASCD. USA

Pacer's National Bullying Prevention Centre. (2015).  Bullying Statistics.  Retrieved [October 30, 2015] from http://www.pacer.org/bullying/about/media-kit/stats.asp

Teaching Tolerance (2014). Critical Practices for Anti-Biased Education.  Teaching Prespectives.org

Using Mobile Devices in the Classroom

Say What?  Mobile Devices in the Classroom!

Why You Need to include Mobile Learning Activities in Your Classroom

Admittedly when I was first introduced to the concept of mobile learning my mind instantly went to the type of learning where students are moving around and being active in the classroom or even taking the classroom outside.  Not for a second did the idea of using mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets come to my mind, and, to be honest, why would it?  Our generation, the digital immigrants, have been scoffing at the mass use of technology for years.  We groan about the number of people captivated by their smartphone on the subway or bus.  Seeing every other person with headphones/earphones in makes us shutter.  And, the digital immigrant teachers, myself included, have been slow to recognize the value of digital devices.  We make classroom rules such as "No Cell Phones" in order to maintain the integrity of the learning environment.  

The problem with the exclusion of mobile devices in learning is that this generation, the digital natives, requires a completely different approach to teaching and learning than we were raised on. I am not going to argue here for a complete shift in teaching where we throw out all the good strategies that work.  The truth is that not everyone has access to a digital device and not all students or teachers are equipped to effectively use technology.  What I am calling for is a hybrid model of education.  As Rudi (2011) points out, this generation of students are demotivated and much of this demotivation is the result of the lack of meaningful use of technology that is integrated into the traditional classroom. Rudi does not argue that every activity needs to be done with a mobile device.  He argues that there needs to be a balance of activities in the classroom that include mobile learning just as much as there is a need for differentiation.  The importance of this increases when you consider the research done by UNESCO (2015), which concluded that over six million people have access to connected mobile device and that for every one person who accessed the internet from a computer, two do so from a mobile device.  The access to information has greatly increased and with that the opportunity for learning can now unfold in a multitude of ways anywhere, anytime.  With that, then, comes the need for teachers to teach technology skills such as digital literacy and digital citizenship.  This can be done effectively when connected to the content of the classroom, and in turn meeting the learning needs of the students.  

As a teacher who has had to transition from a school with little to no technology into one where every student has their own laptop in the classroom, almost all have a smart phone, and about half have a tablet, I can say that the learning curve will be steep.  However, the benefits can be quite encouraging for teachers who are sick and tired of unmotivated and disengaged student who continually show apathy towards their learning.  Just this year alone in my math classes I have seen my own students engaged in learning like I have never seen before.  Students who have a track record of underachieving are now performing at a higher level.  Students who have a track record of struggling to understand the content covered are finally figuring things out.  A perfect example of this is a student in my class yesterday who has been at this school for ten years and deemed a poor math student by teachers and parents being able to explain to the entire class a concept that she had learned through her mobile learning of transformations.  She was engaged, could "play" with the graphs on her mobile device (TI-nspire) and the result was not only her own learning, but the learning of others and development of such 21st century learning skills as collaboration and communication.  What I witness is summarized nicely by Fang (2009) when she discusses how lifting the restrictive nature of technology treatment in the classroom opens up a wealth of learning opportunities and in doing so allows learners to learn the way they learn best without the teacher having to be in complete control.  It turns ownership over to the students and gives them the responsibility to learn for themselves and others.

Guiding Principles for Mobile Learning

It must be noted that whenever you bring connected devices into the classroom there needs to be a set of guidelines for both the teacher and students.  These can be broken down in to considerations for prior to use of the technology, considerations for during to use of the technology, and considerations for after use of the technology.

• Considerations for before using mobile devices in the classroom:
• Does everyone have access to the appropriate device for the activity?
• Is there a need for a network connection?
• How will you limit distractions for students?
• Are there alternatives for the activity in case of technology?
• Is the activity age/level appropriate?
• Are their any technology related skills that need to be taught prior to the activity?

• Considerations for during the use of technology in the classroom:
• Is the activity understood?
• Are students using the technology appropriately?
• Do they understand how to use the technology?
• Are the students engaged?

• Considerations for after the use of technology in the classroom:
• Where there any technology issues that could have been avoided?  If so, how?
• Was the learning goal clear?
• Was the purpose of the activity clear?
• How could the activity be improved in order to increased student engagement and learning?
• Gather feedback from the students.

Mobile Learning Ideas in the Math Classroom

This is no way an exhaustive list, but here are some ideas that I have used for mobile learning in mathematics:

• Flipping the classroom - consider taking your math lessons that are done in the classroom and doing them in a video that is shared with the students before the class.  The idea is that the students would watch them and then come to class and be able to focus on activities and skills development rather than listening to a lecture or watching the teacher do examples on the board.  There a multiple ways to do with with an tablet and a stylus pen.
• Use of mobile devices to gather data (height, arm span, elevation, distance travelled, etc) - instead of giving the students random data from a book or the internet have them collect their own data.  They could use a smartphone app to collect measurements such as height and arm span for a bivariate investigation.  They could use the GPS of their smartphone while walking around a local park in order to map distances, elevation or even work with the speed formula.
• Learning Management System (LMS) - while some LMSs come with a cost, there are others that are free and can be used to push the content of your classroom onto the web whereby students have access to the content anywhere.  This would work nicely with the flipped classroom idea above.
• Graphing Calculators - most don't think of this as a mobile device, but some of the newer models produced by Texas Instruments have connectivity functions that allow students to work with photos loaded onto the calculator and develop functions to model the objects in the photo. You could have students take a picture of a bridge with their smartphone or camera and load it onto the calculator so that they could develop an equation for the spanners of the bridge and even develop force diagrams based on the function (for higher learners).
• Digital textbooks - now that students have devices that allow them to connect anytime anywhere why not consider switching from a paper based text to a digital text.  Many publishers are offering both these days, but this would come at a cost, of course.

References

Fang, Berlin. (2009). From Distraction to Engagement: Wireless Devices in the Classroom. Retrieved [October 21, 2015] from http://er.educause.edu/articles/2009/12/from-distraction-to-engagement-wireless-devices-in-the-classroom

Rudi, Alan. (2011). Hybrid Learning: How to Reach Digital Natives.  Retrieved [October 21, 2015] from http://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/765/hybrid-learning-how-to-reach-digital-natives

UNESCO. (2015).  ICT in Education: Mobile Learning.  Retrieved [October 21, 2015] from http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/themes/icts/m4ed/