Classroom Management and Student Behavior

There are many ways to design a research paper that explores classroom management policies in relation to student behavior. Paper Masters gives you several excellent ideas for organizing and establishing goals in your research paper. This webpage is designed to help education majors put together a research paper for a classroom management project regarding student behavior policies in public education systems.

Your research should be designed to meet several objectives that include:

• Establishing the trends that currently challenge the classroom.
• Identifying the demands on classroom management that result from these trends.
• Identifying traditional and innovative classroom management strategies that have been identified for their effectiveness.

The research should also be designed to answer several questions that are relevant to today's classroom environment and the management strategies that support them including:

• How can teachers adapt their classroom strategies to address the growth of inclusive instruction?
• What classroom management strategies can assist teachers in addressing the increase in harassment and violence in schools today?
• How can teachers capitalize on the benefits of technology in the classroom such as computers and other technological tools?

The research is also designed to answer a primary question on the application of the findings, which is "How can newer and more innovative classroom management strategies improve on traditional education strategies"?

Personally interview two teachers and a school administrator. Review district policies or other documents related to student behavior, classroom management (e.g. student code of conduct, standard classroom procedures, descriptions of intervention programs). Use the focus questions provided to guide your inquiry.

Question to Explore When Interviewing Administration on Classroom/Student Policies

When writing up your interview on the classroom student policies of a particular institution, begin by first giving a brief description of the school environment, socioeconomic status, and type of location, grade levels or whatever else you can to describe the school setting.

1. What did you discover about the structure and documents the district/school established for maintaining/supporting an environment that that minimizes disruption to the learning process?
2. What do you believe are the strengths and weaknesses of the structure(s) and documents? Were there gaps? What could be done to improve the structures/documents?
3. If you were a teacher in the school/district, would the structure be sufficiently helpful?

Questions to Use for Teacher and Administrator Interviews

1. What is the districts/schools philosophy and policy regarding student behavior and discipline?
2. With respect to student behavior and discipline, does the school have a student handbook and or code of conduct as well as clear general procedures for teachers to follow?
3. What do you believe are the most significant student behavior requirements/rules/regulations:
   1. In the school
   2. In the classroom?
4. What are the primary strategies for disciplining students for inappropriate behavior:
   1. In the school
   2. In the classroom?
5. What are the expectations and responsibilities for teachers related to classroom management and student discipline?
6. Are conflict resolution strategies used to address problems related to student behavior:
   1. As a regular part of the schools program?
   2. As a regular part of classroom management?
   3. Why/why not?
7. Is student self management and appropriate behavior formally taught and reinforced as part of the regular curriculum? If so, in what ways is this done? Are special materials used?
8. Is character education or social emotional learning addressed? If so how?
9. What advice would you give a new teacher as to:
   1. The skills, attitudes, and teaching strategies needed to establish a learning environment that minimizes disruption of the learning process.
   2. Student behavior and addressing inappropriate behavior in the classroom?

Questions to use for teacher interviews only

1. What is your personal philosophy and classroom policy regarding student behavior, discipline, and the infusion of social emotional learning and/or character education into class content?
2. What effective teaching models, classroom organizational strategies, and procedures do you use to maintain a classroom environment that minimizes disruptions of the learning process and promotes student self management?
3. What are some of the most difficult problems you encounter related to student behavior and discipline, and how do you deal with them:
   1. In the classroom
   2. In the school
   3. In other ways
4. What specific strategies do you use in the classroom to prevent inappropriate behavior?
5. What special strategies or interventions do you use when a student behaves inappropriately and disrupts classroom instruction of routine?
6. What kind of support do you receive from other staff to assist you with preventing, or intervening in, student behavior discipline problems (e.g. administrators, guidance staff, nursing staff, special education staff)?
7. What role do parents play in supporting your efforts to develop student self-management and appropriate behavior? How are parents involved when students behave inappropriately? How do you interact with parents to support you in the prevention of inappropriate behavior and in intervening when it arises?
8. Would you like to make any other comments about the issues we addressed in this interview?

Interviewers Conclusions (about 1 to 1 ½ pages)

Briefly present your conclusions based upon what you found with regard to documents, policies, procedures, student behavior, classroom management, curriculum, teaching, and learning. Why was the purpose of this assignment? What did you learn from completing this exercise?