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B. Rogers (ed): Classroom Behaviour: A Practical Guide to Effective Teaching, Behaviour Management and Colleague Support Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2015 Bill Rogers reminds us in Classroom Behaviour (4th ed), of the socially oriented reciprocity of teacher and student relationships and behaviour, and the need for teachers to step up to the role of behavioural leader. The short and long term preventative interventions include establishing, maintaining, and consolidating classroom routines that encompass the rights, responsibilities, rules, and consequences for teachers and students. Strategies to enhance teachers' understandings include utilising learning buddies, using visual cueing, developing work schedules, checking for understanding, and ensuring opportunities for physical activity.
B. Rogers (ed): Classroom Behaviour: A Practical Guide to Effective Teaching, Behaviour Management and Colleague Support Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2015
Bill Rogers reminds us in Classroom Behaviour (4th ed), of the socially oriented reciprocity of teacher and student relationships and behaviour, and the need for teachers to step up to the role of behavioural leader. As behavioural leaders teachers recognise the core rights and responsibilities of all involved and focus on behavioural ownership, they see their power as being authoritative with and not authoritarian over students, and they view consequential discipline as opportunities to repair, rebuild, and reconcile. Rogers acknowledges this very real and at times stressful aspect of classroom management and provides authentic narrations of the everyday behavioural issues and situations facing teachers in classrooms today. Theoretically sound, researched, and practical problem solving strategies and best practices are described, analysed, and validated. Throughout the book teachers are supported to proactively and respectfully manage their own behaviour and assist students to manage theirs.
Rogers illustrates the inextricable link between positive teaching styles, effective teaching, constructive relationships, and behavioural leadership. Noting that these require a teacher with a visible, confident, and enthusiastic presence he provides strategies for implementing and sustaining visibility, confidence, and enthusiasm. These include humour, warmth, and rapport, inviting and sustaining engagement, questioning and waiting, and descriptive feedback.
The relational dynamics of classroom behaviour are brought to life through Rogers' anecdotes and suggested preventative interventions. The anecdotes, presented as case examples and case studies, are taken from Rogers' personal and professional experiences and will be readily recognised and related to by teachers and students alike. The use of humour and the authenticity of the situations will assist both to recognise the effective and less effective behavioural and consequential choices being made.
The short and long term preventative interventions include establishing, maintaining, and consolidating classroom routines that encompass the rights, responsibilities, rules, and consequences for teachers and students. The suggested classroom routines range from low key tactical ignoring and non-verbal cueing to directed choices and deferred consequences on to assertive comment and command. Implicit within any intervention is the involvement of the student and their opportunity to review and experience the consequences of their own behaviours. The notions of consequence and reparation as opposed to punishment are put forward. Consequences and reparation are task-related, emphasise certainty and accountability, and should be applied within a pro-rights school-wide framework.
Rogers recognises that 70-80 % of students are respectful and positive when given respectful, positive, teacher leadership. Ten to 15 % of students can at times be challenging through attention-seeking behaviours and power-positioning. One to five percent of students display recurrent and extreme patterns of disruptive behaviour. The needs of the one to five percent are recognised in this book and Rogers warns against the temptation to label students. Instead he stresses the importance of defining the behavioural condition so as to better understand the student and not defining the student so as to understand the behavioural condition. Strategies to enhance teachers' understandings include utilising learning buddies, using visual cueing, developing work schedules, checking for understanding, and ensuring opportunities for physical activity. Again these strategies are realistic and useful in terms of developing specific team-approaches to individual student support plans. The plans are designed to assist teachers and students better understand their own behaviour and their shared behavioural goals.
Behavioural leadership is extended to supporting and working with frustrated or angry parents, colleagues, relief teachers, and other educational professionals. The reader is reminded to remain aware of their own behaviours, how their behaviours can positively and adversely affect others, and how we deal with the behaviours of others.
Each chapter concludes with questions from Rogers aimed at eliciting the readers reflections on their individual and school-wide beliefs, skills, and practices in behavioural leadership within and beyond the classroom. The reader has the opportunity to respond to the ideas put forward, to critically analyse how they currently position themselves as a behavioural leader, to review the successes and effectiveness of that positioning, and to further develop their behavioural leadership skills and practices.
In this fourth edition of Classroom Behaviour, Rogers has provided additional online access to videos and podcasts of him discussing and demonstrating common behavioural scenarios and answering frequently asked questions from teachers. Links to further reading options related to each chapter have been made available. Tools and resources such as posters, behavioural assessments, and do's and don'ts reminders are also offered. A Pinterest page containing varied and helpful educational resources is provided online as well.
Classroom Behaviour (4th ed), is likely to be a valuable resource for teachers and teacher-researchers. For the teachers who are individually or collectively grappling with their own and others' classroom and school-wide behaviours. For the teacherresearchers who are seeking to broaden the depth and breadth of their knowledge and awareness. The scenarios are real and relatable, the feelings and reflections honest, and the problem-solving strategies and interventions realistic. All teachers, teacher-researchers, professional leaders, and educationalists will benefit from contemplating and putting into practice the suggestions and guidance in this book and their students and colleagues may thank them too.
Copyright New Zealand Association for Research in Education 2015