Tool
Gathering and Construct Building
for Pro-active
Discipline
To complete
this assignment successfully, you should:
- Study
the two options and choose the one you believe will support your growth
as a pro-active teacher.
- Enter
your response(s) in the space(s) provided
- Fill in
your Name and Email address
- Send the
Assignment
- Tally
up
 's
for completion of this assignment.
Assignment:
There
are two options here. You may choose the one that you feel will further
your ideas.
Option One
Summary
of Developmental Research Findings
Shared
ownership is a foundational principle in humanistic education. In many
classrooms the model for ownership is clearly teacher centered. The teacher
is organizer, molder and holder of keys. In most of the classrooms the
teacher ownership could include dynamics of subject centered or teacher
centered, depending upon the format of information giving and evaluation,
yet there is a definite awareness of the teacher as ultimately responsible
and the true adult in the process.
The first hurdle to implementation tends to be justifications for rejection
presented as the following belief statements.
The teacher:
- is the
expert
- is responsible
to the district
- has
life experiences which are not part of the student vision
- can
teach to enhance performance on national evaluations
- has
a deeper knowledge of content and what should be taught and learned.
These are
components of teaching and are only barriers if they are the sum total
of the teaching role.
In addition, many teachers express concern about ăletting go of the reinsä
with a belief that:
- once
students are given such freedom they cannot be pulled back
- open
rebellion may occur affecting learning
- student
reasoning and social skills are too limited to maintain appropriate
social behaviors
- teacher
as fallible may mean students will not respect requests and thus wonât
be as likely to attend to requirements
- respect
and the acts of respect are a perk of the classroom teacher
- uncertainty
of the outcome
- mechanisms
and power bases that currently force a student to comply may be lost
- obedience
is an important lesson and students should be subject to it
- work
ethic will disappear
- students
will not honestly self evaluate
- evaluation
will become more subjective
- parents
and society donât want this type of setting.
These concerns
are very honorable. A laissez faire teaching setting is not good for youth
and does not promote high achievement. Further, most of the teachers who
established shared ownership of the learning community experienced a very
difficult time learning to trust youth, learning to take the role of facilitator,
finding new ways to help students give their best, letting ăgoä long enough
to see that students are quite thrilled to be trusted, more apt to work
than not, and that the work ethic increases in almost every instance with
students feeling empowered. With the few students who are not yet ready
to take responsibility for learning, who have not learned to set and stay
with personal goals, the teacher has time and energy, as facilitator, to
help these students learn new roles.
How can teachers adapt and to see productive outcomes from the expended
energy of learning new roles and teaching students the necessary skills
to be successful co-owners.
Assignment:
Consider some of these ideas and issues. Share your ideas or experiences.
Option
Two
There is
a plethora of research on education. Most of it comes from monitoring
the teaching point of view. Another large contributor to educational research
comes from assessing scores and achievement.
Find five
different research studies or articles about discipline techniques (ERIC
may be a quick source). Look for evidence that feelings or ideas of students
were included in the material. Write a one minute essay on the material
you find, focusing on:
- point
of view - example 4/5 or 80% did not include student perspectives
- general
impression of educational success
Directions: Place your responses here. Feel free to send email
to the professor to share your thoughts and to post ideas in the VCC.
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