Seven Strategies for Building Positive Classrooms

The Positive Action program shows that we can promote academic achievement and build students'
character.

Every day as millions of students go to school, their parents and caretakers hope these young people will
be treated with care, valued, inspired, and educated. Students hope they will get along with their peers
and teachers, have their work measure up, and enjoy the process of learning. These hopes define
positive classrooms for parents and students.

Unfortunately, the accountability requirements of No Child Left Behind have created a different
definition of positive classrooms for many educators. For them, positive classrooms have come to mean
places where students arrive at school ready to learn; work diligently to master academic standards
(particularly math and reading); go home and accurately complete homework; and return to school the
next day eager to learn more. Often, teachers are so focused on ensuring that students pass
achievement tests that they have little or no time to address students' social and emotional needs.

Education has to work for all stakeholders. By implementing the following seven strategies, we can
combine the need for positive classrooms that support the whole child with the need for accountability
and improved academic performance. The Positive Action program (www.positiveaction.net) has refined
these strategies through 26 years of research, evaluation, and development, and has implemented them
in more than 13,000 schools.

1. Make Learning Relevant

Students are more engaged in learning and retain knowledge better when they see that it is relevant
and vital to their own success and happiness. By discovering students' talents, learning styles, and
interests, teachers can adjust teaching methods and strategies. By giving students a say in how the
classroom operates, teachers increase students' sense of ownership in the education process.

2. Create a Classroom Code of Conduct

A positive and productive classroom requires a common understanding of positive and negative
behaviors. To establish this understanding, teachers ask students to identify the ways they like to be
treated. This discussion elicits lists of behaviors that are respectful, fair, kind, and empathetic. Together,
teacher and students conclude that treating others the way you want to be treated is the best code of
conduct, and they agree that this code will dictate the behaviors that are appropriate for their
classroom.

3. Actions Teach Positive

We need to teach students positive behaviors in a thorough, consistent, systematic way; we cannot
assume that students just know them. The Positive Action curriculum covers the following concepts.

The importance of doing positive actions to feel good about yourself.

Positive actions for a healthy body (such as nutrition, exercise, and sleep).

Positive actions for the intellect (such as thinking, decision-making, and problem-solving skills).

Positive actions for self-management (such as managing time, energy, emotions, and other personal
resources).

Positive actions for getting along with others (such as treating others fairly, kindly, and respectfully).

Positive actions for being honest with yourself and others (such as taking responsibility, admitting
mistakes, and not blaming others).

Positive actions for improving yourself continually (such as setting and achieving goals).

4. Instill Intrinsic Motivation

People need to feel good about themselves. In the Positive Action program, teachers help students
understand that people are likely to feel good about themselves when they engage in positive actions.
The program explains a three-step process for choosing positive actions: First, we have a thought;
second, we act consistently with the thought; third, we experience a feeling about ourselves based on
the action. That feeling leads to another thought, and the cycle starts again. With practice, students
learn that if they have a negative thought, they can change it to a positive one that will lead to a positive
action and a positive feeling about themselvesa powerful intrinsic motivator.

With repeated reinforcement by the teacher, this simple explanation helps students understand and
improve their behavior in any situation.

5. Reinforce Positive Behaviors

Teachers can strengthen intrinsic motivation by recognizing and positively reinforcing positive actions
when they see them. Recognition activities and itemssuch as tokens, stickers, and certificatescan be
effective. But when teachers or other staff use this strategy, it's important that they recognize the
positive behavior, ask how it made the student feel, and tell the student the extrinsic reward is a
reminder of that good feeling. When students make the connection between their performance and
feeling good about themselves, intrinsic motivation is enhanced and positive behaviors continue.

6. Engage Positive Role Models

Families and community members are concerned about their children's welfare, often want to be
engaged in their children's education, and have resources to offer. Educators can integrate them into
many classroom and school activities, such as curriculum activities, assemblies, committees, after-school
events, and homework.

7. Always Be Positive

Perhaps the most important strategy, yet often the most difficult to carry out, is to be positivefrom
classrooms to playgrounds, during school and after. There is always a positive way to respond to a
situation. A positive attitude is the change agent that will create positive classrooms and schools that
produce happy and successful students.

A Research-Based Program

It is challenging to implement all of these seven strategies continuously and well. For schools looking for
a tool, the Positive Action program is one proven approach. The program provides an easy-to-use
curriculum for teachers at each grade level; a principal component for developing school climate; and
kits to facilitate the involvement of counselors, families, and communities.

Positive Action has been rigorously evaluated in longitudinal randomized studies with students from a
range of backgrounds and in a range of community types. The U.S. Department of Education's What
Works Clearinghouse reviewed these studies and recognized Positive Action as the only character
education program thatby the clearinghouse's standardsachieves positive effects in both academics
and behavior (see http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/reports/character_education/pa). The many schools
using Positive Action stand as testimony that focusing on positive reinforcement and intrinsic motivation
in the classroom results in a positive environment for teaching and learning and enhances academic
rigor.

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The Characteristics Of A Highly Effective Learning Environment

Wherever we are, wed all like to think our classrooms are intellectually active places. Progressive
learning (like our 21st Century Model, for example) environments. Highly effective and conducive to
student-centered learning. But what does that mean?

The reality is, there is no single answer because teaching and learning are awkward to consider as single
events or individual things. This is all a bunch of rhetoric until we put on our white coats and study it
under a microscope, at which point abstractions like curiosity, authenticity, self-knowledge, and
affection will be hard to pin down.

So we put together one take on the characteristics of a highly effective classroom. They can act as a kind
of criteria to measure your own againstsee if you notice a pattern.
10 Characteristics Of A Highly Effective Learning Environment

1. The students ask the questionsgood questions

This is not a feel-good implication, but really crucial for the whole learning process to work.

The role of curiosity has been studied (and perhaps under-studied and under-appreciated), but suffice to
say that if a learner enters any learning activity with little to no natural curiosity, prospects for
meaningful interaction with texts, media, and specific tasks are bleak. (Interested in how to kill learner
curiosity in 12 easy steps?)

Many teachers force students (proverbial gun to head) to ask questions at the outset of units or lessons,
often to no avail. Clich questions that reflect little understanding of the content can discourage
teachers from allowing them. But the fact remainsif students cant ask great questionseven as
young as elementary schoolsomething, somewhere is unplugged.

2. Questions are valued over answers

Questions are more important than answers. So it makes sense that if good questions should lead the
learning, there would be value placed on these questions. And that means adding currency whenever
possiblegrades (questions as assessment!), credit (give them pointsthey love points), creative
curation (writing as a kind of graffiti on large post-it pages on the classroom walls), or simply praise and
honest respect. See if you dont notice a change.

3. Ideas come from a divergent sources

Ideas for lessons, reading, tests, and projectsthe fiber of formal learningshould come from a variety
of sources. If they all come from narrow slivers of resources, youre at risk of being pulled way off in one
direction (that may or may not be good). An alternative? Consider sources like professional and cultural
mentors, the community, content experts outside of education, and even the students themselves.
Huge shift in credibility.

And when these sources disagree with one another, use that as an endlessly teachable moment,
because thats what the real world is like.

4. A variety of learning models are used

Inquiry-based learning, project-based learning, direct instruction, peer-to-peer learning, school-to-

school, eLearning, Mobile learning, the flipped classroom, and on and onthe possibilities are endless.
Chances are, none are incredible enough to suit every bit of content, curriculum, and learner diversity in
your classroom. A characteristic of a highly-effective classroom, then, is diversity here, which also has
the side-effect of improving your long-term capacity as an educator.
5. Classroom learning empties into a connected community

In a highly-effective learning environment, learning doesnt need to be radically repackaged to make

sense in the real world, but starts and ends there.

As great as it sounds for learners to reflect on Shakespeare to better understand their Uncle Eddieand
they mightdepending on that kind of radical transfer to happen entirely in the minds of the learners
by design may not be the best idea. Plan on this kind of transfer from the beginning.

It has to leave the classroom because they do.

6. Learning is personalized by a variety of criteria

Personalized learning is likely the future, but for now the onus for routing students is almost entirely on
the shoulders of the classroom teacher. This makes personalizationand even consistent
differentiationa challenge. One response is to personalize learningto whatever extent you plan for
by a variety of criterianot just assessment results or reading level, but interest, readiness-for-content,
and others as well.

Then, as you adjust pace, entry points, and rigor accordingly, youll have a better chance of having
uncovered what the learners truly need.

7. Assessment is persistent, authentic, transparent, and never punitive

Assessment is just an (often ham-fisted) attempt to get at what a learner understands. The more
infrequent, clinical, murky, or threatening it is, the more youre going to separate the good students
from the good thinkers. And the clinical idea has less to do with the format of the test, and more to
do with the tone and emotion of the classroom in general. Why are students being tested? Whats in it
for them, and their future opportunities to improve?

And feedback is quick even when the grading may not be.

8. Criteria for success is balanced and transparent.

Students should not have to guess what success in a highly-effective classroom looks like. It should
also not be entirely weighted on participation, assessment results, attitude, or other individual factors,
but rather meaningfully melted into a cohesive framework that makes sensenot to you, your
colleagues, or the expert book on your shelf, but the students themselves.

9. Learning habits are constantly modeled

Cognitive, meta-cognitive, and behavioral good stuff is constantly modeled. Curiosity, persistence,
flexibility, priority, creativity, collaboration, revision, and even the classic Habits of Mind are all great
places to start. So often what students learn from those around them is less directly didactic, and more
indirect and observational.
Monkey see, monkey do.

10. There are constant opportunities for practice

Old thinking is revisited. Old errors are reflected on. Complex ideas are re-approached from new angles.
Divergent concepts are contrasted. Blooms taxonomy is constantly traveled up and down, from the
simple to the complex in an effort to maximize a students opportunities to learnand demonstrate
understandingof content.

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Effective Classroom Management for the 21st Century Teacher

The challenges teachers face in todays classroom are astounding. As well as teaching content, teachers
need to be data analysts, content and standards experts, and technology gurus. The individual needs of
students present additional obstacles for teachers. In some classes, over a dozen different languages
other than English are students first languages, and some students come to school hungry and/or
scared, or unsettled from the challenges they face at home or in their neighborhood. No matter what a
students socioeconomic background, s/he may enter the classroom with various personal struggles that
affect day-to-day learning and interaction with peers.

How do you address these classroom management challenges in ways that cultivate your students
sense of self, support them in making more appropriate choices in the future, and create an
environment in which they can thrive emotionally and academically?

In this course, youll find answers to this question. Youll explore 21st-century research-based strategies
and approaches to classroom management that will help you create a classroom that enhances
students emotional intelligence and academic achievement, boosts their confidence, and equips them
with skills that will help them succeed today, tomorrow, and throughout their future. The approaches
and strategies in this course will enable you to create thriving, positive learning environments for your
students and you

1. Connections to Practice

This course provides the following classroom connections:

Strategies for addressing student misbehavior and preventing power struggles between you and your
students
 Techniques in building a strong classroom community that cultivate students 21st century skills,
foster students taking responsibility for their behavior, and support students in making good choices

Strategies for identifying why students misbehave and proactively addressing these needs

Ideas for creating, communicating, teaching, and enforcing meaningful class expectations, procedures,
and routines

Tips for creating powerful learning activities and assessments that build students academic, social,
and emotional success

Activities that enhance student self-concept and help to build a positive student-teacher relationship

Course Objectives

The goals of this course are for the teacher to be able to:

Identify how to plan and implement classroom management strategies that engage students, enhance
student self-concept, build a positive classroom community, promote student achievement, and foster
the development of 21st century skills (e.g., collaboration, compassion, critical thinking, and
communication)

Examine how sharing control with students supports the shift from a teacher-centered classroom to a
student-centered classroom, enhances the student-teacher relationship, preempts power struggles, and
creates an environment that allows teachers to make key decisions when necessary without student
push back

Analyze the source of student behavior and understand how to identify and effectively address
students mistaken goals to prevent future classroom management challenges and promote student
success

Explore best practices for creating class rules, teaching procedures and routines, and communicating
expectations throughout the day to prevent misbehaviors related to miscommunication

Explore the connection between students misbehavior and instruction, and understand how to
modify instruction and assessment to optimize student connection, understanding, and achievement

Understand the teachers multifaceted role in the 21st century classroom and how that can be
leveraged to prevent off-task behaviors

Learner Outcomes

Upon completion of this course, the teacher will be able to:

Articulate the importance of establishing and cultivating a supportive classroom community that
integrated research-based classroom management strategies to increase student engagement and
academic achievement
 Embody the multifaceted teacher role as mentor, manager, inspirational guide, and co-learner in the
21st century classroom

Utilize specific classroom management strategies that enhance student self-concept including
desisting moves, walk and talk strategies, and instructive consequences

Outline plans to create a supportive classroom community and foster positive student-teacher
relationships throughout the year

Develop and describe your personal philosophy regarding class rules and constitutions and create a
corresponding plan that is enforceable and enhances the classroom community

Identify areas throughout the day that will benefit from routines and procedures that support
seamless transitions between activities and maximized learning time

Use students mistaken goals to deepen understanding of and address their needs, to proactively
preempt misbehavior and foster student success

Embrace and exemplify the importance of sharing control with students by offering limited choices
and solving problems together to prevent power struggles and foster a student-centered classroom

Develop a comprehensive plan for classroom management that incorporates research-based and best
teaching practices

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Enhancing Student Learning: Seven

Principles for Good Practice
The Seven Principles Resource Center
Winona State University
The Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education grew out of a review of 50
years of research on the way teachers teach and students learn (Chickering and Gamson, 1987,
p. 1) and a conference that brought together a distinguished group of researchers and
commentators on higher education. The primary goal of the Principles authors was to identify
practices, policies, and institutional conditions that would result in a powerful and enduring
undergraduate education (Sorcinelli, 1991, p. 13).

The following principles are anchored in extensive research about teaching, learning, and the
college experience.
1. Good Practice Encourages Student Instructor Contact

Frequent student instructor contact in and out of classes is an important factor in student
motivation and involvement. Instructor concern helps students get through rough times and keep
on working. Knowing a few instructors well enhances students intellectual commitment and
encourages them to think about their own values and future plans.

Implementation Ideas:

Share past experiences, values, and attitudes.

Design an activity that brings students to your office during the first weeks of class.
Try to get to know your students by name by the end of the first three weeks of the term.
Attend, support, and sponsor events led by student groups.
Treat students as human beings with full real lives; ask how they are doing.
Hold out of class review sessions.
Use email regularly to encourage and inform.
Hold regular hours in the Michigan Union or residence halls where students can stop
by for informal visits.
Take students to professional meetings or other events in your field.

2. Good Practice Encourages Cooperation Among Students

Learning is enhanced when it is more like a team effort than a solo race. Good learning, like
good work, is collaborative and social, not competitive and isolated. Working with others often
increases involvement in learning. Sharing ones own ideas and responding to others reactions
improves thinking and deepens understanding.

Implementation Ideas:

Ask students to share information about each others backgrounds and academic interests.
Encourage students to prepare together for classes or exams.
Create study groups within your course.
Ask students to give constructive feedback on each others work and to explain difficult
ideas to each other.
Use small group discussions, collaborative projects in and out of class, group
presentations, and case study analysis.
Ask students to discuss key concepts with other students whose backgrounds and
viewpoints are different from their own.
Encourage students to work together.

3. Good Practice Encourages Active Learning

Learning is not a spectator sport. Students do not learn much just sitting in classes listening to
instructors, memorizing assignments, and spitting out answers. They must talk about what they
are learning, write about it, relate it to past experiences, and apply it to their daily lives. They
must make what they learn part of themselves.
Implementation Ideas:

Ask students to present their work to the class.

Give students concrete, real life situations to analyze.
Ask students to summarize similarities and differences among research findings, artistic
works or laboratory results.
Model asking questions, listening behaviors, and feedback.
Encourage use of professional journals.
Use technology to encourage active learning.
Encourage use of internships, study abroad, service learning and clinical opportunities.
Use class time to work on projects.

4. Good Practice Gives Prompt Feedback

Knowing what you know and dont know focuses learning. Students need appropriate feedback
on performance to benefit from courses. In getting started, students need help in assessing
existing knowledge and competence. In classes, students need frequent opportunities to perform
and receive suggestions for improvement. At various points during college, and at the end,
students need chances to reflect on what they have learned, what they still need to know, and
how to assess themselves.

Implementation Ideas:

Return examinations promptly, preferably within a week, if not sooner.

Schedule brief meetings with the students to discuss their progress.
Prepare problems or exercises that give students immediate feedback on how well they
are doing. (e.g., Angelo, 1993)
Give frequent quizzes and homework assignments to help students monitor their
progress.
Give students written comments on the strengths and weakness of their tests/papers.
Give students focused feedback on their work early in the term.
Consider giving a mid-term assessment or progress report.
Be clear in relating performance level/expectations to grade.
Communicate regularly with students via email about various aspects of the class.

5. Good Practice Emphasizes Time on Task

Time plus energy equals learning. There is no substitute for time on task. Learning to use ones
time well is critical for students and professionals alike. Students need help in learning effective
time management. Allocating realistic amounts of time means effective learning for students and
effective teaching for instructors.

Implementation Ideas:

Communicate to students the amount of time they should spend preparing for class.
Expect students to complete their assignments promptly.
 Underscore the importance of regular work, steady application, self-pacing, scheduling.
Divide class into timed segments so as to keep on task.
Meet with students who fall behind to discuss their study habits, schedules.
Dont hesitate to refer students to learning skills professionals on campus.
Use technology to make resources easily available to students.
Consider using mastery learning, contract learning, and computer assisted instruction as
appropriate.

6. Good Practice Communicates High Expectations

Expect more and you will get it. High expectations are important for everyonefor the poorly
prepared, for those unwilling to exert themselves, and for the bright and well motivated.
Expecting students to perform well becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when instructors hold high
expectations for themselves and make extra efforts.

Implementation Ideas:

Make your expectations clear at the beginning of the course both in writing and orally.
Tell them you expect them to work hard.
Periodically discuss how well the class is doing during the course of the semester.
Encourage students to write; require drafts of work. Give students opportunities to revise
their work.
Set up study guidelines.
Publish students work on a course website. This often motivates students to higher levels
of performance.
Be energized and enthusiastic in your interaction with students.

7. Good Practice Respects Diverse Talents and Ways of Learning

There are many roads to learning. People bring different talents and styles of learning to college.
Students rich in hands-on experiences may not do so well with theory. Students need the
opportunity to show their talents and learn in ways that work for them. They can be pushed to
learning in new ways that do not come so easily.

Implementation Ideas:

Use a range of teaching activities to address a broad spectrum of students.

Provide extra material or exercises for students who lack essential background
knowledge or skills.
Identify students learning styles, backgrounds at the beginning of the semester.
Use different activities in class videos, discussions, lecture, groups, guest speakers,
pairwork.
Use different assignment methods written, oral, projects, etc. so as to engage as many
ways of learning as possible (e.g., visual, auditory).
Give students a real-world problem to solve that has multiple solutions. Provide examples
and questions to guide them.