Classroom Control Scenarios -- Procedures

 

The scenarios you are about to encounter are not intended to traumatize the student. Nonetheless, the stress you may feel could indeed be real. You will have the opportunity to hone your classroom management skills, and to determine to what extent you possess an adequate knowledge base to handle a classroom full of unruly students. Hopefully, these situations will never happen to you; still, they can and do occur everyday in classrooms across America. Should any of these events occur in your presence, hopefully you'll be better prepared to deal with them.

Ground rules for scenarios.

 

  1. Student picks "fortune cookie" to determine his or her "fate."
  2. Student, as teacher, begins to work through 3-problem set. Teacher attempts to maintain a classroom atmosphere conducive to student learning.
  3. Students follow guidelines provided them when "fortune cookie" is opened. All students have roles in each scenario. Students are expected to play along, being as creative as the situation warrants, but not changing the basic nature of the scenario. For instance, an argument between teacher and student should not end in a shooting.
  4. Scenarios will run from 5-10 minutes. They will end when situation is either corrected, gets entirely out of hand, or ten minutes are reached -- whichever comes first. The course instructor will determine which events are out of hand and call an end to the scenario.
  5. The students will not leave the classroom, and the classroom door will remain shut. An area within 2 meters of the door will be considered the hallway. Teachers may "take students out into the hallway" by walking them to within 2 meters of the classroom door.
  6. Following the end of each scenario, the all students will analyze the situation, determining what went wrong, how the teacher handled the situation, how the control procedures might have been improved, whether or not the teacher acted within the limits of authority and with prudent and professional conduct.
  7. Each scenario and its analysis will be limited to 15 minutes.
  8. This is a learning experience. Students as teachers are not being graded on the quality of their responses to students. As always, the usual and customary expectation for full student involvement applies.

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