Discipline: A type of order among pupils that enables learning to take place without competition from unproductive events or agents. It is a system of rules for conduct and a mechanism for ensuring that conduct codes are followed.
Pro-Active Classroom Management (or prevention techniques): Most master teachers find pro-active behavior management very effective for preventing classroom misbehavior. Pro-active management includes using planning, environmental arrangements, curriculum, sequence of activities, and a structured environment to maintain order in the classroom.
Punishment: is defined as the application of an aversive stimulus immediately after a behavior with the effect of reducing the future occurrence of that behavior.
Most beginning teachers and some experienced teachers believe the topic of classroom management only
addresses negative consequences which serve to decrease disruptive classroom misbehaviors. And while it
is true that with few exceptions, such as the reinforcement of incompatible or alternative behaviors, most
behavior reduction consequences do incorporate some form of punishment. Punishment, however, actually
plays only a minor role in effective classroom management.
A technical application of punishment presents consequences in a way different from the everyday perception of punishment. Our everyday use of the term punishment usually conveys some physical or
psychological hurt. In the last sections of this introduction, I will describe the difference between technical
punishment and the every day use of that term; and present three common uses of punishment that occur
in inclusive classrooms. Teachers should know about punishment procedures and their effects because
punishment, as defined technically, will occur in all instructional settings whether planned or non-planned.
Teachers should view punishment as a necessary, but definitely infrequent, component of a complete and
coherent classroom management system.
Brophy and Good (1983) believe the whole premise of effective behavior management is to produce
ORDER in the classroom. The teacher cannot teach and the student cannot learn without classroom order.
They acknowledge that management with punishment alone tends to be reactive and counterproductive.
Most master teachers find pro-active behavior management very effective for preventing classroom misbehaviors. Pro-active management includes using planning, environmental arrangements, curriculum, sequence of activities, and structured environment to maintain order in the classroom. They conclude that the greatest portion of all classroom management can be effectively accomplished through the consistent application of pro-active classroom management techniques.
Finally, it has been found that several important variables correlate with not only effective instruction and student achievement, but also with the pro-active management of classroom deportment. Here are some examples of these important variables:
1. Explicit Rules. Do you have explicit rules for your classes? If not, I suggest you establish rules--no more than 5 or 6. Emphasize rules that give the appropriate academic and social behaviors, but you may also need a few "thou shall not" (social behavior) rules. Have your students help in the development of the class rules -- a class discussion is a good way to work these out. And make sure that you prominently post the clearly printed and readable rules. You will need to periodically review the rules with students. And finally, provide consequences for rule following -- both positively and negatively which are fair and uniform.
2. Increase Monitoring of the Classroom. At the very start of an inappropriate behavior give immediate corrective comments. "Jim, that type of behavior is not appropriate in my classroom." Always attempt to go to the student and quietly give these comments. It is important that you not embarrass the student -- something which is usually counterproductive to achieving student behavioral goals. Try to stop the behavior before it develops into something big. If the inappropriate behavior doesn't correct, you may have to use a more intrusive behavior reduction procedure.
3. Catch them being Good. Increase your use of positive consequences to the group and individuals. This is very important. "Catch them being Good, and let the students know that their doing well means a lot to you! Don't be afraid to tell students they are doing a good job. All of us like to know when we do something well. It is doubtful that you could give too many positive comments to your students!
4. Redirect. Offer choices when redirecting students. For instance, "You have the option/choice of doing
____Option A____ or ____ Option B____. Which one do you want to do?" Try not to ask Yes or No
questions, since they rarely get the student to make a clear decision about what they are actually going to
do.
5. Keep Instructional Time Short and Increase Variety in Your Lessons. Spend no more than 15 minutes before you introduce another activity. For example, do a short review (e.g., 5 minutes) of past lessons by calling on individual students to answer teacher-generated questions. I recommend for you to ask the questions using a fast-paced presentation -- you really want to keep questions and answers moving along briskly. You can also practice for 10 minutes using choral responding (see Lesson 2). Or you can give a 15-minute lecture or presentation using guided notes. Finally, you can give a quiz, or some other kind of performance evaluation -- use no more than 10 minutes for any type of evaluation. Use a review activity for the final 10 minutes of class time.
6. NO DEAD TIME #1. Keep instruction moving and active. Use short transition times between lessons
and activities within the lessons.
7. Active Student Responding. Make minimum use of passive responding and conversely, make maximum use of active student responding. Review Dr. Heward's section of this course which presented techniques to increase active student responding -- these techniques for increasing the overall amount of student responding are excellent and you can incorporate as many as possible in your instruction.
8. NO DEAD TIME #2. Keep instruction going until the specified end of the period. Any teacher will have management problems if active learning time ends either ten minutes before, or 10 minutes after, that class is supposed to be over.
9. Direct and Frequent Evaluation. Give short daily quizzes over each lesson. Grade them yourself, or have students self-score their performance. The daily evaluations and quizzes should actually count toward course grade. Frequent, and informative, academic evaluations can help to decrease inappropriate social behavior.
1. Rearrange the physical environment to decrease or prevent undesirable classroom behavior. For example, arrange classroom seating based on traffic flow, ease of access of materials, which is gained through teacher observation of all the students.
2. Use "interspersed requests" (sometimes called pre-task requests or behavioral momentum) with difficult students. "Interspersed requests" is an antecedent arrangement for decreasing challenging behaviors. Learners may perform these requests to avoid more difficult tasks.
Procedure(s) for you to Use: Present a few easy tasks immediately before the target task. These tasks have several features: (a) the learner can perform them, (b) they take a short time to complete, and (c) they are more likely to be made correctly.
In the examples that follow, you will be exposed to a situation in the first bulleted item which presents a negative outcome often encountered when using normal instructional procedures with students having disabilities; while the second bullet gives you an example of how the probability of a positive outcome can be increased by using an "interspersed requests"approach:
Interspersed Requests--Example 1. Instructing a student with developmental disabilities to put on a pullover shirt.
Using a normal instructional voice, the teacher tells the student to, "put on the shirt." The student responds by throwing a tantrum.
Using a normal instructional voice plus interspersed requests the teacher tells the student to "give me five." The student slaps the teacher’s hand. The teacher says "All right, nice job!" Next the teacher offers the student a ball and tells him to put the ball in his pocket. The student puts the ball in his pocket. Teacher follows with, "Great! That is right!" Now, the teacher says, "Put on the shirt." The student puts on shirt (perhaps with some physical assistance, if needed).
Interspersed Requests--Example 2. Instructing a high school student with learning disabilities
Using normal instruction, a high school English teacher has her students practice extemporaneous speaking. Students, one-at-a-time, select one topic card from a box on the teacher's desk. Immediately afterwards, the student presents a five-minute extemporaneous talk on the topic selected. The student with learning disabilities draws a card, quietly put the card back in the box, returns to her seat, and refuses to participate.
Using normal instruction plus interspersed requests the teacher asks the student with specific learning disabilities, "How many symphonies did Brahms write"? The student, a highly gifted cellist with learning disabilities immediately, says four symphonies. The teacher acknowledges her correct answer then asks, "Who composed Appalachian Springs"? She smiles while saying Copland. Finally, the teacher says, "Will trade you my card for the card you just drew, but if you want to trade cards you cannot look at the questions on the cards before the trade." She trades cards with the teacher. The text on the teacher's card said, "Develop a case for or against the proposition that Yo-Yo Ma is the foremost cellist of the 20th century." The student actively participates in this extemporaneous speaking opportunity which is designed around her avid interest area.
What is Punishment?
Most of us view punishment as some form of physical or psychological hurt. The dictionaries define punishment in strong terms as causing or inflicting physical or psychological hurt.
Punish: (a) cause (an offender) to suffer for an offense; (b) inflict a penalty for (an offense); (c) inflict severe blows on (an opponent); (d) tax severely; subject to severe treatment, abuse or treat improperly (The Oxford Encyclopedic English Dictionary, 1995, pp. 1170-1171).
Suffering, pain, or loss that serves as retribution: severe, tough, or disastrous treatment (Webster's Ninth New College Dictionary, 1986).
Punishment is defined as the application of an aversive stimulus immediately after a behavior with the effect of reducing the future occurrence of that behavior.
Every day and technical definitions define an aversive stimulus by its effect on behavior: a stimulus is considered aversive when a response is strengthened by its contingent removal or when a response is depressed by its contingent presentation.
Aversive: tending to avoid or causing avoidance of a noxious or punishing stimulus (Webster's Ninth New
College Dictionary, 1986).
1. The everyday definitions of punishment are subjective and focus on the teacher’s intentions. If not done properly, the teacher's "punishment" technique: (a) may not impact on the behavior being punished, or (b) or actually may worsen the behavior.
2. The technical definition of punishment is defined by the relationship between behavior and consequence. It asserts that, if the consequence decreases or suppresses the behavior then and only then is the consequence a punisher. For example, if you work in a school district that still paddles children as a consequence of extreme types of misbehavior, the school disciplinarian is usually the person who administers the paddling. Most of us would say that the disciplinarian is the "one who has punished the student". And the paddling would qualify as punishment if the student stopped or did less of the misbehavior. However, the paddling would be considered to be completely neutral if the
misbehavior did not change following the paddling. Finally, the paddling might actually function as reinforcement for that particular student if following the paddling, the misbehavior increased in spite of the paddling.
Why should teachers make a distinction between subjective and functional definitions of punishment?
Simply because what one-person finds aversive another will not. Similarly, what will function positively for one student may function aversively to another student. For example, teacher praise following an academic accomplishment may strengthen future academic performances of one student, but another student may find the way that the teacher praises are aversive. We have all punished student behaviors with our best intentions because we usually subjectively assess our intentions rather than assess the effects of our intentions on actual student behaviors.
I really enjoy listening to Frank Sinatra's music. Perhaps many of you find his music pleasant, also. The following example presents a punishment technique used by a social science high school teacher. The example shows how some persons can find Frank's music aversive (even though I will never understand how this could be?):
This Teacher Does Detention His Way!
Bruce Janu has a different kind of detention. The social science teacher punishes troublemaking students by making them stay after school and listen to Frank Sinatra for a half-hour. Janu created the Frank Sinatra Detention Club last year at Riverside-Brookfield High School in Riverside, Illinois. "You've got a Frank," he tells unruly students. The 24-year-old teacher said he loves Sinatra's music but realizes that teen-agers these days would rather listen to rap or Madonna. "The kids hate it," she said. "This is the worst thing that has ever happened to them." Senior Mike Niesluchowski received two Franks in one day, meaning he had to listen to Ol' Blue Eyes for an hour. "It just got to where he couldn't stand it," she said. (Copied from the People section of the Columbus Dispatch)
Widely Accepted Punishment Procedures For School
Teachers:
Time Out, Response Cost, and Overcorrection
Time-Out from Positive Reinforcement
"Time-out" from positive reinforcement is the loss of the opportunity to acquire reinforcement for a specified period of time, contingent upon the occurrence of a behavior.
Procedure(s) for you to Use: The teacher can remove the student from the reinforcing environment or remove the reinforcing environment from the student. To clarify with a family example, most six year old children enjoy watching Saturday morning cartoons on TV. If the child misbehaved while watching cartoons, the parent could apply "time-out" by sending the child to another part of house for a specified amount of time. The child returns to the TV room at the end of the time that you have specified. This example demonstrates a technique of removing the student from the reinforcing environment. Also, the parent could apply "time-out" by turning off the TV for a specified time but allow the child remain in the TV room, doing other activities.
1.Using time-out in classroom settings can present several potential difficulties for teachers (e.g., a worst case scenario is formal legal action!). Often the parents and the public associate the phrase "time-out" with solitary confinement as used in prisons, or they associate time-out with locked "time-out rooms" used years ago in institutions for clients with retardation or emotional disturbances. These time-out associations evoke a variety of emotional reactions when parents and public learn of a teacher using time-out techniques. They also make great press, so the severity of the behaviors that are taking place in the actual classroom are often over-shadowed by the controversy of the techniques to deal with them.
2.In a "typical" time-out situation, students do not make academic responses while in the time-out situation. With time-out, students not only loose the opportunity to earn additional reinforcers, they also lose the opportunity for continued academic and social learning. So, the judicious and sparing use of time-out techniques is warranted -- and they should be a final consequence -- definitely not the first consequence of choice for teachers.
1.Time-out will function as punishment only if the student genuinely wants to participate in classroom activities. So, use time-out only for students who do not want to leave your classroom and are motivated to participate in the activities. All too often, the students placed on time-out in schools could care less about participating in classroom activities. Commonly, the way schools practice time-out is like what happens when a six-year-old child misbehaves while the family is watching a local news broadcast. After the child misbehaves, a parent may impose a "times out" on the child by not allowing the child to view the local news broadcast. Well, unfortunately most six-year-old children that I know could care less about watching the TV news! So, they will just move along and still misbehave whenever they want because the relationship between the opportunity for the student to stay and watch the news has no reinforcing value.
2.Keep the duration of the time-out short. I recommend using no more than a 5-minute time-out for most regular and special education classroom settings. Use another behavior reduction technique if time-out effectiveness requires more than 5-minutes away from academic responding. At the middle and high school levels where a time-out or in-school suspension room is provided, specific guidelines for use should also be followed. Simply using those rooms to remove students does nothing to correct the inapppropriate behavior. For most students, suspension out of school is much more significant, because parents are forced to deal with the behavior.
Response cost is the removal of a specific amount of positive reinforcers contingent upon the occurrence of a behavior. Typical examples of response cost include the loss of recess time in elementary schools, and the loss of an opportunity to participate in a special field trip in middle and secondary schools. If time out is like going to jail. Then response cost is like receiving a fine!
1.Students can earn reinforces for appropriate academic and social behaviors.
2.Students can receive non-contingent (free) reinforcers.
3.Students lose (are fined) reinforcers for misbehavior.
4.Response cost can apply to total class performance and also to individual performance.
1.Clearly define the misbehavior and the amount of the fine
2.Insure all students have a reinforcer reserve
The punishment technique of overcorrection provides an application of restitution or positive practice contingent on misbehavior. Our courts increasingly apply overcorrection to criminal behavior as a punishment, rather than fining or sending the offender to jail. Overcorrection has great appeal for teachers because the overcorrection technique always relates directly to the type of misbehavior. Teachers can apply restitutional overcorrection, or positive practice overcorrection.
Restitutional overcorrection requires the student to restore the environment to a state vastly improved from that, which existed before the problem occurred. To clarify with an example from criminal behavior; a court could fine or jail a person caught littering. As an alternative to a fine or jail, the criminal could clean up the area littered, and each weekend for two months pick up litter along major highways. This is a demonstration of restitutional overcorrection.
A school-based example of restitutional overcorrection. A high school student writes the obscene "F" word
on a classroom wall. The school could have the student make restitution by removing the word from the wall (e.g., cleaning, painting), then wash all of the classroom walls in that corridor.
Positive practice overcorrection can not only provide a mild punishment, but can also be an educative technique in so far as it provides an opportunity to engage in appropriate behavior performed to a high degree/level.
School examples of positive practice overcorrection. For generations, elementary teachers have punished student's misspelling of words with positive practice overcorrection. For each word misspelled on a mid-week spelling test, the teacher would typically have students use a dictionary to find the correct spelling of the misspelled words, and then correctly write each word correctly five times.
1.It is sometimes difficult to apply and may need additional help to monitor the treatment.
2.It sometimes takes more time than other punishment techniques.
3.Student resistance (physical or verbal) can occur in response to the technique.
Ethical issues always accompany the use of punishment. There can be serious social and legal consequences associated with the use of punishment -- both in schools and in homes.