Evaluation of Behaviour Management Session 14/11/08 Chris Savory

Evaluation of Behaviour Management session 14/11/08 Chris Savory

I made a conscious decision to arrange the tables in a rectangle and to sit facing the front – and not to use the projector – so that the focus of the group wasn’t on me so strongly at the front of the class – as I wanted to model a more humanistic approach. The high quality and quantity of student contributions throughout the session made me think that this had been successful. It is a small andwell motivated group though – a different approach might be needed with a larger one. The only disadvantage of not using the projector and presentation was that I used a rather densely worded handout – and the students were trying to read this whilst I was talking. I will use a PowerPoint type handout in future – even if I stick to the same room layout.

I was very pleased with the level of discussion and demonstrable understanding of behaviour management techniques based on a behaviourist model. My mission is to get students to understand that if they use these techniques then they will be more successful if they apply them rigorously on the principles of behaviourism.

For the first time of trying the NVC exercise went well. There are several areas that I intend to improve on for next time. The role play instructions need to be clarified – it works much better if the teacher can combine the 4 stages into one statement – if they pause the difficult student can really disrupt the flow – which isn’t helpful when it is being tried for the first time.The fluency of the introduction will be better next time – and I will work on getting the examples worked out more – more time to be spent on coming up with examples in group perhaps? Different handout as already mentioned.

It shouldn’t be underestimated how alien this approach is to our normal culture. We find it very difficult to know our feelings honestly and to be able to express them. So this needs more attention and could well form the focus of the extension of this work in module 6.

It was a really exciting learning experience though – role play brings out unexpected and interesting points – one student was reluctant to take teacher role and when I asked ‘aren’t you a teacher?’ they said ‘No’! which was very revealing about their confidence in role. Another student found it impossible to start the exercise because they went straight to a position of ‘stop doing that’. We also had a really good laugh and all enjoyed the experience very much.