Managing a Culturally Diverse Classroom

How can we provide students with a safe place for learning?

According to Ergin et al. (2021), immigrant students experience negative attitudes from other students in school in the form of bullying, which affects their performance in school. Teachers play a vital role in providing a safe learning environment for students. A positive atmosphere in the classroom improves students' academic performance as students can focus on learning without any distractions or fear of not being accepted (Kwok, 2017). In an interview with a veteran teacher, she mentioned that classroom management plays an essential role in providing a safe environment for our students.

Classroom Management

Kwok (2017) defined classroom management involves the physical environment, cultural diversity of students, rules, routines, and relationships with students to achieve high academic performance. Teachers experience challenges in classroom management as the dynamics of the student population in each classroom differ from each class. According to Garrett (2008), there are two main categories of classroom management: teacher and student-centered. In teacher-centered classroom management, the leadership is sole with the teacher, and the discipline comes with the teacher, while student-centered classroom management involves the students. Students are part of setting the classroom expectations and have an intrinsic motivation to be accountable for their behavior. Garrett (2008) mentioned that the latter is more effective between teacher and student-centered classroom management.

Be Proactive!

Teachers focus on setting expectations and rewards or consequences for student behaviors than finding a proactive approach to avoid discipline issues in the classroom. Larson (2018) emphasized that teaching social skills to students is a proactive approach that has proven effective in handling students with challenging behavior. Access to technology affects the students' social skills adding to the school shut-downs and quarantine protocols brought by the Covid-19 pandemic. Students have a hard time communicating with other members of society as they cannot express their thoughts and do not know how to accept negative feedback. Parents' input promotes cultural responsiveness in a social skill curriculum that will help improve students' behavior in the classroom (Kourea, 2016). Using the "I" statements is a strategy that teachers can use to build and enhance the relationship with students (Lauren Price & Steed, 2016). Yelling and punishment threats are proven ineffective with students and only cause them to lose interest in learning, resulting in their poor performance in school (Kher, 2000). Building relationships with students is time-consuming but positively affects classroom management (Terada, 2020).

Setting the Class Expectations

The class involves teachers and students, and often teachers share their expectations as "class expectations" when the students' opinions are not considered when listing the expected behaviors from them. It is also a way to build a relationship with our students and be accountable for their actions. As much as we need to be consistent with our consequences, there are situations when we need to modify our expectations to reflect individual differences. Based on my teaching experience, I came up with a guideline for setting classroom expectations below.

When does Classroom Management become a Disaster?

Often students who are not engaged in the learning process are the ones who have discipline issues. There are different factors why the students are not involved with the learning process factors. Some of these factors are learning difficulties; they are not challenged with the discussion, or the activities prepare are not enough for the class period. The table below summarizes characteristics of why some classroom management strategies are not effective.

How can we be effective classroom managers?

Many books and professional development sessions can help new and veteran teachers manage their classrooms, but there is no better teacher than experience. Here are five things that I can share to be an effective classroom manager:

A classroom with students who accept individual differences is vital component in having a positive classroom environment. Teachers are responsible in modeling a culturally accepting classroom. According to a veteran teacher, teaching students to see the perspective of different individuals in a certain situation will help them to be more accepting with different kinds of students. One of the main goals of school is to prepare students in a globally competitive world. Teaching social skills to students is one of the most important skills that teachers can teach to their students that cannot be found in a book (Larson et al, 2018). As a teacher, the students eyes are always on me and it is important that I build relationship to each student no matter what their beliefs are.

References:

Ducker, M. J. (2021). Identifying diverse learners. Unpublished manuscript. American College of education

Friedman, I. A. (2006). Classroom Management and Teacher Stress and Burnout. In C. M. Evertson & C. S. Weinstein (Eds.), Handbook of classroom management: Research, practice, and contemporary issues (pp. 925–944).https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2006-01816-035

Flower, A., William McKenna, J. & Christa D. Haring, C. D. (2017) Behavior and classroom management: Are teacher preparation programs really preparing our teachers?. Preventing School Failure: Alternative Education for Children and Youth, 61:2, 163-169, https://doi.org/ 10.1080/1045988X.2016.1231109

Garrett, T. (2008). Student-Centered and Teacher-Centered Classroom Management: A Case Study of Three Elementary Teachers. The Journal of Classroom Interaction, 43(1), 34–47. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23869529

Goodman, J. F., & Cook, B. I. (2019). Shaming school children: A violation of fundamental rights? Theory and Research in Education, 17(1), 62–81. https://doi.org/10.1177/1477878518817377

Jones, S. M., Bailey, R., & Jacob, R. (2014). Social-emotional learning is essential to classroom management. Phi Delta Kappan, 96(2), 19–24. https://doi.org/10.1177/0031721714553405

Kher, N., Lacina-Gifford, L. J., & Yandell, S. (2000). Preservice teachers' knowledge of effective classroom management strategies: Defiant behavior. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED444941.pdf

Kourea, L., Lo, Y., & Owens, T. (2016). Using parental input from black families to increase cultural responsiveness for teaching SWPBS expectations. Behavioral Disorders, 41(4), 226–240.

Kwok, A. (2017). Relationships between instructional quality and classroom management for beginning urban teachers. Educational Researcher, 46(7), 355–365. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X17726727

Larson, K. E., Pas, E. T., Bradshaw, C. P., Rosenberg, M. S., Day-Vines, N. L., & Gregory, A. (2018). Examining How Proactive Management and Culturally Responsive Teaching Relate to Student Behavior: Implications for Measurement and Practice. School Psychology Review, 47(2), 153–166. https://doi.org/10.17105/SPR-2017-0070.V47-2

Lauren Price, C., & Steed, E. A. (2016). Culturally Responsive Strategies to Support Young Children With Challenging Behavior. YC: Young Children, 71(5), 36–43. https://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=b94bb5b0-8bb1-4d72-b081-d6677a8d29c8%40sessionmgr4008

Reinke, W. M., Herman, K. C., & Newcomer, L. (2016). The Brief Student–Teacher Classroom Interaction Observation: Using Dynamic Indicators of Behaviors in the Classroom to Predict Outcomes and Inform Practice. Assessment for Effective Intervention, 42(1), 32–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/1534508416641605

Terada, Y. (2019, February 27). The key to effective classroom management. https://www.edutopia.org/article/key-effective-classroom-management

Terada, Y. (2020, August 7). 7 Classroom management mistakes and the research on how to fix them. https://www.edutopia.org/article/7-classroom-management-mistakes-and-research-how-fix-them

Wilson, N. L. (2012), The principal's role in developing the classroom management skills of the novice elementary teacher. University of Tennessee. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/1572