RSS Feed for the unit Teaching for good behaviour

Introduction

The Open University — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 09:04:30 GMT

The quality of our teaching inevitably has an impact on the behaviour of our students. This unit considers some of the factors that can contribute to misbehaviour in the classroom and some of the steps that we can take as teachers to re-engage students with the learning process. This unit considers the format of lessons, how lessons are delivered, how to present lesson content in an interesting and creative way, and the development of "engaging lessons".

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Learning outcomes

The Open University — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 09:04:30 GMT

The learning outcomes for this unit are:

exploring the links between lesson format and learning styles;
examining quality lesson delivery and its links to good behaviour;
experimenting with new and innovative approaches to planning and teaching.

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1 Teaching and behaviour

The Open University — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 09:04:30 GMT

The quality of our teaching inevitably has an impact on the behaviour of our students: a student who is busy learning is far less likely to think about misbehaving. Using a range of strategies, positive approaches and rewards will have a positive impact on behaviour on a day-to-day basis. However, one of the key factors in getting sustained good behaviour is ensuring that your students are fully engaged with the work that they are doing.

There are many factors that can contribute to misbehaviour in the classroom. A number of these are directly related to the quality of the teaching and learning experience that we offer, and include:

Boredom: because the work is not sufficiently interesting or engaging.
Disaffection: the feeling that school and learning is not relevant to our students' real lives.
Mismatch: between the work set and the students' ability, or between the type of tasks given and the students' learning styles.

As teachers, we obviously have a professional duty to ‘get through’ the curriculum, and to cover all the statutory areas. However, you may well have found that when your class is not behaving well and the students are refusing to stay on task, very little satisfactory work is actually done at all.

When considering your own professional development, there are various ways in which you can improve your students' level of engagement. In order to teach for good behaviour, we need to think about the format, delivery and content of our lessons. As well as re-engaging our students with the learning process, delivering quality lessons will also make your work a much more satisfying experience.

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2 Lesson format

The Open University — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 09:04:30 GMT

For some of our students, school can feel like a confusing and even frightening place. Those students who come from backgrounds where there is little structure need to be given a feeling of security if they are to work to the best of their ability. Finding ways to give a clear format to our lessons will give the students a ‘hook’ to hang on to when the demands of the academic environment are putting them under pressure.

There are various ways in which we can format our lessons to encourage good behaviour. The pressures of the job mean that these approaches to teaching are sometimes forgotten or overlooked. Consider how you might use the following ideas to help you format your lessons better.

The lesson journey: View your lessons as a journey in which the destination is a place where new knowledge or understanding has been gained.
Map the lesson: Start your lesson with a statement of aims, telling the students ‘This is what we are going to achieve today’. Map out the direction of the lesson, giving your students an overview of all the places (activities) they will visit.
Use short tasks: With short activities, there is less opportunity for the students to get bored, and they are more likely to stay on task. Using short tasks allows you to: set a clear time limit to focus the class; give a target to aim for; and offer a reward for achieving that target.
Use a variety of tasks: By using a range of tasks you will allow students with different learning styles to succeed. This range might include: writing; speaking; listening; drawing; hands-on, practical work; and active, ‘get-up-and-do’ work.
You be teacher: Think about ways in which you can hand over the learning to the students whenever possible. This helps give them a sense of ‘ownership’ of the learning, and will also give you a rest from teacher-led work.

There has been much discussion and study in recent years about different ‘learning styles’. It will not always be possible for us to differentiate the work that we set to suit each individual's preferred learning style. However, what we can do is ensure that we incorporate a range of tasks that will work best for different learning styles within the majority of our lessons.

The resources referred to in Activity 1 give information that will help you to adapt and develop your teaching to suit learners with different styles or ‘intelligences’.

Look now at Activity 1.

Activity 1

Click on the link here for a description of the ‘Three main learning styles’ – visual, auditory and kinaesthetic – and some ideas about teaching approaches to use.

If you click here, you will also find a detailed outline of Howard Gardner's theory of ‘Multiple intelligences’.

You might like to talk through some of your recent lessons with a colleague, examining the learning styles for which each activity caters, and how you could adapt these lessons to suit a wider range of learning styles.

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3 Lesson delivery

The Open University — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 09:04:30 GMT

The way in which we deliver our lessons will have an impact on the students' interest and engagement in the work. If we appear enthused and excited by the subject that we are studying, then at least some of this enthusiasm will inevitably rub off on our class.

The successful teacher will deliver his or her lessons with a sense of:

Pace: keeping the class and the learning moving forwards.
Clarity: knowing where the lesson is going.
Energy and enthusiasm: giving the feeling that the teacher enjoys what they are doing.
Positive attitude: making use of positive language and engendering good feelings in the students.
High expectations: that the students will want to do their very best.
Imagination: that learning can be original, interesting and creative.

Delivering your lessons in this way is not easy, particularly when you are feeling tired, under stress, or overloaded with work. As teachers, we only have a limited amount of energy available, and it is therefore important to spend this energy in the most positive ways that we can.

Click on the plus and minus signs below to see more about positive and negative uses of your energy.

Interactive content appears here. Please visit the website to use it.

Click on 'View document' to read 2 examples of how to begin a lesson, these will be used in the activity below

View document

Now look at Activity 2.

Activity 2

When considering the delivery of your lessons, it is worth taking a few moments to stand in your students' shoes. Viewing the teacher from their perspective will help you understand the elements that go together to give a sense of excitement about, and interest in, the work.

Click on the "view document" link above and read the two samples taken from the beginning of a lesson. Consider the experience of this lesson from your students' perspective, perhaps discussing your ideas with a colleague.

How will the students be feeling about the work that is about to take place?
How might this feeling affect their behaviour during the lesson?
Which specific words or phrases could engender a positive or negative feeling in the students?

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4 Lesson content

The Open University — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 09:04:30 GMT

To a certain extent, the actual content of your lessons will be dictated by the curriculum requirements. However, it should be possible to put across that content in an interesting, imaginative and creative way. Not only will doing this help to engage your students with their work, it will also mean that you enjoy the lessons as well.

There are various ways in which we can make our lesson content as successful and appealing as possible. The more inventive and skilful we can become as teachers, the better the behaviour from our students will be. Here are some ideas to get your creative juices flowing:

Use props: Seeing something in the classroom that is not normally there will capture your students' attention, and get their imaginations working. These props help ‘key’ the students into the work.
Personalise the teaching: Find ways to make the content of the work relevant to your students' lives, for instance basing a topic around a current classroom craze.
Be inventive and imaginative: See the planning process as a chance to experiment. Not every experiment will work, but you will often find that you are far more successful in engaging your students when you do harness your own imaginative powers.
Make the learning active: Find ways of actually ‘doing’ the concept that you are trying to teach. For example, you might get your students to act out different verbs.
Use all the senses: We tend to make most use of sight and hearing in the classroom. Try to get your students using smell, taste and touch as well, for instance by using a blindfold and feeling different objects.

Activity 3

It can be tempting to see planning as a very linear process, in which we work through the lesson content in a chronological way. However, this style of planning – which we were typically taught at university – can tend to stifle the teacher's creative powers.

Look at the onestopenglish website, which offers some excellent and unusual ideas for the planning of lessons. Although these ideas are aimed at teachers working with EFL students, there is some really useful advice here that applies equally to teachers in the mainstream classroom who wish to develop their lesson planning skills.

After looking at the site you might like to try using one of the strategies to plan for a forthcoming lesson. Having done this, you could examine how the lesson went to see whether this approach to planning has helped you become more creative and imaginative in your teaching.

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5 Developing ‘engaging’ lessons

The Open University — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 09:04:30 GMT

Think of your students as fish, swimming around in the waters of the school. An engaging lesson gives you the bait with which to catch your fish. And once they are hooked on your bait, then misbehaving will hopefully be the last thing on their minds!

Engaging your students is important for a number of reasons. An exciting lesson can be used:

as a reward for previous good behaviour;
as a carrot for behaving well in the future;
to help you get a reputation as a ‘fun’ teacher.

There are many ways in which you can develop your own practice by planning more engaging work for your students. This might mean:

using an ‘attention grabbing’ starter;
using a fictional scenario through which to teach the work;
finding engaging resources – objects, clothes, food, people;
making topical connections between the work and current events;
using ‘non classroom’ props or objects to inspire the class.

Click on 'View document' to open 'Props for lesson openings'

View document

Activity 4

Click on the "view document" link above and read ‘Props for lesson openings’, which suggests some different props that might be used in the classroom, and gives ideas about how these objects could be used. Either on your own or with a colleague, make a list of possible uses for each of these props in your own age range and subject areas.

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Next steps

The Open University — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 09:04:30 GMT

After completing this unit you may wish to study another OpenLearn Study Unit or find out more about this topic. Here are some suggestions:

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Acknowledgements

The Open University — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 09:04:30 GMT

Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Licence

Author details

Sue Cowley is an experienced teacher and subject co-ordinator, who has taught at both primary and secondary level, in the UK and overseas. She now works as a writer, trainer and consultant. Sue is the author of numerous books, including the best-selling "Getting the Buggers to Behave", and she also writes regular features for the TES.

Other acknowledgements

Unit image D3CLAN at Flickr

Every effort has been made to contact copyright owners. If any have been inadvertently overlooked, the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity.

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