★ Must-know
Classroom materials should be visible, easy to reach, and stored on enough shelves to avoid stacking; related supplies and activities should be placed near the spaces where students use them.
Learning spaces should provide clean, convenient surfaces, avoid crowded workspaces, dead spaces, and racetracks, and allow teachers to see students and students to see instruction without rearranging furniture.
📌 Teachers should assess whether classroom visuals represent students' cultures and languages and whether shelves, workspaces, and computers are accessible to students with disabilities.
Further detail
Supportive classroom design accounts for fixed features and provides convenient electrical outlets for computers, media centers, and tablet charging stations.
Classrooms should provide private, quiet work areas away from traffic lanes, separate noisy and quiet activities, offer flexible individual, group, and whole-class spaces, and give students a place for personal belongings.
Teachers can try a classroom arrangement for two weeks, evaluate it, and enlist students' help in improving the design.
★ Must-know
Effective elementary teachers begin with a carefully organized first day, prepared materials and activities, and attention to students' immediate practical concerns. - Emmer & Evertson, 2017
Effective elementary teachers explicitly teach workable rules and everyday procedures through explanation, examples, and practice, using guided practice or rewards when appropriate. - Emmer & Evertson, 2017
📌 Poorly managed elementary classrooms use vague or overly complicated rules, inconsistent consequences, and routine procedures that vary and are neither taught nor practiced. - Emmer & Evertson, 2017
Further detail
During the first weeks, effective elementary teachers use whole-class academic activities to monitor rule learning, teach students to respond to an attention signal, and stop misbehavior quickly but not harshly. - Emmer & Evertson, 2017
For less-prepared secondary students, shorter work cycles that move smoothly through several tasks are preferable to long, unbroken periods of one activity. - Emmer & Evertson, 2017
A prepared first day prevents aimless wandering; vague rules and unpracticed routines invite it.
★ Must-know
Student engagement tends to increase as teacher supervision increases, so independent work requires careful planning and monitoring rather than elimination.
Teachers support students' management of their own work by (Emmer & Evertson, 2017):
Jacob Kounin's 1970 study found that effective and ineffective teachers were not greatly different in how they handled discipline after problems arose; effective managers were better at preventing problems.
Further detail
📌 A timing error occurs when a teacher waits too long to intervene, whereas a target error occurs when the teacher blames the wrong student and lets the actual instigator avoid responsibility. - Kounin
Notice the class, juggle activities, focus the group, and keep the lesson moving.
★ Must-know
Positive teacher-student relationships are associated with students' classroom engagement, academic achievement, and social-emotional development. - Meyer & L. Anderman, in press
Students are more likely to bond with school when they have choices, experience emphasis on personal improvement rather than comparison, and feel respected and supported by teachers. - Osterman, 2000
In the EMR model, teachers establish relationships through warm, individual, validating interactions and shared interests; maintain them by aiming for five positive interactions per negative one; and restore them after conflict by separating the deed from the doer, solving problems together, validating feelings, and not holding grudges. - Duong et al., 2019
Further detail
In a study following 1,364 students from kindergarten through ninth grade, positive teacher relationships during the first six school years were associated with higher GPAs, more advanced science enrollment, higher educational aspirations, stronger social skills, and higher math and English self-concepts. - Ansari et al., 2020
School belonging is associated with greater happiness, engagement, attendance, graduation likelihood, self-discipline, and self-efficacy, and with lower likelihood of substance abuse, violence, and early sexual activity. - Allen et al., 2018
Check & Connect pairs students with a trained mentor who monitors attendance, behavior, and grades and coordinates individualized support with school staff, families, and community resources; research links the program to improved engagement and achievement. - Anderson et al., 2004
Teachers can build individual connections by scheduling one-to-one conferences, holding virtual office hours and reaching students who disappear or do not seek help, and exchanging introductory videos in which students pronounce their names when remote learning includes video access.
EMR: Establish, Maintain, Restore.
★ Must-know
📌 Treating behavioral errors as opportunities to learn, as with academic errors, encourages teachers to provide instruction and practice in better decisions rather than assume intentional misconduct and respond with criticism, punishment, or exclusion (Jones & Jones, 2016; Stahnke & Blömeke, 2021).
Emmer and Evertson (2017) and Levin and Nolan (2000) present eight responses to misbehavior in order from least to most intrusive: eye contact or proximity; verbal hints; questions about effects or an “I” message; a brief whole-class activity; reminders of procedures or quiet removal of distractions; asking the student to state and follow the rule; a calm, assertive stop instruction; and offering a choice.
The seven categories of student penalties are (Romano and Weinstein, 2019):
📌 When penalties are necessary, teachers should begin with the least intrusive option and escalate only if needed.
Further detail
If a student talks back after a teacher gives a calm, assertive instruction to stop misbehaving, the teacher can calmly repeat the instruction.
Glasser (1969) suggests asking a student three calm questions: “What are you doing? Is it against the rules? What should you be doing?”
📌 An apology of action combines a verbal apology with repairing the harm caused, helping the offending student develop empathy and social perspective taking (M. J. Elias & Schwab, 2006).
📌 Teachers should not use low achievement status or grades as discipline because this is unfair, ineffective, and alienating (Carolyn Orange, 2005).
★ Must-know
📌 Zero-tolerance policies commonly suspend or expel students for a first rule violation or punish minor infractions each time in an effort to deter serious violations.
The American Psychological Association’s Zero Tolerance Task Force (2008) concluded that zero tolerance had not made schools safer or discipline more effective, increased suspensions without reducing racial bias, and could increase misbehavior and dropout rates.
Restorative justice treats misconduct as harmful because it adversely affects the school community, rather than simply because it breaks a rule, and aims to repair harm, maintain accountability, support students, and reintegrate them into the community (Fronius et al., 2016).
📌 Marvin Marshall (2013) distinguishes classroom management, which concerns procedures, routines, and structures and is the teacher’s responsibility, from discipline, which concerns behavior, self-control, and emotional self-regulation and is the student’s responsibility. - Discipline Without Stress® Punishments or Rewards: How Teachers and Parents Promote Responsibility & Learning
Further detail
Supporters argue that zero tolerance promotes school safety, clear expectations, rapid responses, equal treatment, preparation for real-world rules, reduced drug presence, and parental confidence (Morin, 2020; Sasser, 2017).
The seven principles of restorative justice are (Vincent Anfara Jr. and his colleagues, 2013):
Restorative justice can use victim-offender mediation, conflict-resolution conferences, or peacemaking circles; mediation may involve a facilitator and families, lets victim and offender describe their experiences, and can lead to remorse, forgiveness, reconciliation, and an agreement for restoring cooperation and preventing future conflict (Parker & Bickmore, 2020; Zehr et al., 2015).
📌 Levels C and D may look alike, but level C behavior is externally motivated while level D behavior is internally motivated; for example, picking up trash when asked is level C, whereas doing so without being asked is level D.
Teacher-managed classroom procedures contrast with student-owned discipline and self-regulation.
★ Must-know
📌 Cyberbullying can involve anonymous attacks and a vast public audience, whereas other forms of bullying often have fewer witnesses and depend more on physical or social power.
Among students in grades 4 through 12, about 31% report physical bullying, 51% verbal bullying, 37% social bullying, and 12% cyberbullying; some studies report that up to 80% have been bullied in some way.
Prolonged bullying harms victims’ academic achievement, social relationships, and mental health, and chronic victims through elementary and middle school are more likely to be depressed and attempt suicide as young adults.
Further detail
📌 Teasing a person who is less powerful or less popular, or using a racial, ethnic, impairment, or religious slur, should not be tolerated.
Bullying can begin in preschool, generally peaks during middle school, and declines somewhat by the end of high school.
Studies in Europe and the United States estimate that about 12% of boys and 6% of girls are chronic bullying victims, defined as constant targets of physical or verbal attacks from ages 8 to 16.
Students at increased risk of being bullied include those who are obese or small, unpopular, ethnic or language minorities, gifted, disabled, or LGBTQ.
Both bullies and victims are at risk of long-term academic, psychological, and behavioral problems, including drug use, as reported by Hymel and Swearer (2015), Patton et al. (2013), Thomas et al. (2015), and Ttofi et al. (2016).
Chronic victims may have low self-esteem and feel anxious, lonely, insecure, and unhappy; they may cry, withdraw, and not defend themselves when attacked.
Signs of being bullied can include anxiety, depression, headaches, stomachaches, frequent tardiness, and school absence; about 160,000 children avoid school each day, and thousands more drop out because of fear.
Victims are more likely than bullies to kill or injure others in schools, according to Reinke and Herman (2002a, 2002b). - Reinke & Herman
Having friends can help students cope with bullying, and ethnically diverse schools may lessen feelings of vulnerability because power is divided and shared among groups.
In-person bullying relies on power; cyberbullying can rely on anonymity and a wider audience.
★ Must-know
📌 Teachers should respond immediately to bullying rather than ignore it, because students may believe teachers will not help and therefore not report incidents.
📌 Teachers should make consequences clear in advance, escalate them if bullying continues, include reflection, and teach better ways to meet the bully’s underlying goals rather than humiliate the student.
Cooperative learning that creates positive interdependence can foster friendships and inclusion; in a randomized study of 1,460 seventh-grade students, cooperative groups showed significantly less bullying and victimization (Van Ryzin and Roseth, 2018). - Mark Van Ryzin and Cary Roseth
About 95% of adolescents have smartphone access, and up to 70% experience cyberbullying over a year (Morin et al., 2018; Yang et al., 2020).
📌 Schools should define cyberbullying and consequences in an explicit acceptable-use policy, take concerns seriously, and teach students not to share personal information, delete evidence, open unknown senders’ messages, or reply to abusive messages.
Further detail
📌 Schools and teachers should address the motivations underlying bullying, not only the bullying behavior, as recommended by Ken Rigby (2012).
A two-year longitudinal study of first- through sixth-grade students found that teaching aggressive children conflict-management strategies moved them away from a path of aggression and violence (Aber et al., 2003).
Positive teacher–student relationships are associated with greater student sympathy for bullying victims (Waasdorp et al., 2019).
The Olweus Bullying Prevention Program had good results in a study following 120 schools in grades 3–11 over two years (Limber et al., 2018).
Research findings on many school-wide bullying prevention programs are mixed, and some programs adopted by administrators lack scientific evidence of effectiveness.
When bullying persists despite overall school improvements, victims may blame themselves and become more isolated, so they may need extra support or counseling to understand that the bully is seeking power.
Schools can involve parents in preventing and responding to bullying by sharing policies and supporting communication built on trust between parents and schools.
Cyberbullying can be difficult to combat because perpetrators can hide, and its harm can be long-lasting.
Cyberbullying can include rumor spreading, ghosting, subtweeting, griefing, fake accounts, hate speech, mass distribution of verbal abuse, and sending embarrassing or compromising images or videos.
📌 Students experiencing cyberbullying should show messages to a trusted adult, block or forward messages when appropriate, tell an adult, and show the police any message containing physical threats.
Cooperative learning builds positive interdependence → new friendships and less bullying.
★ Must-know
📌 For incomplete high-school work, teachers should help students use a daily planner, keep accurate records, enforce established consequences, and avoid passing students merely because they seem bright enough.
During a hostile outburst, a teacher can offer the student time to choose cooperation, arrange a private conversation after class starts, seek an assistant principal if the student refuses to leave, follow through, and consult a counselor, family, or other teachers if outbursts recur.
During a fight or property destruction, send for help, identify participants and witnesses, remove the audience, do not attempt to break up the fight without help, and notify the school office.
🔄 The guidelines for potentially explosive situations are to (C. S. Weinstein & L. Minkobonsky, 2015): move slowly and deliberately, maintain respectful distance and speech, be brief and focused, avoid power struggles, state the expected behavior and consequence as a choice, withdraw and allow time for a decision, deliver the consequence if the student does not choose appropriately
Further detail
📌 For students who repeatedly break rules, teachers should seat them away from easily influenced classmates, apply consequences consistently, teach self-monitoring, and maintain friendly contact beyond rule enforcement.
Move slowly, show respect, be brief, avoid power struggles, then state a choice and withdraw.
★ Must-know
📌 Passive teachers fail to direct behavior clearly or respond promptly, whereas hostile teachers condemn or threaten students; assertive teachers calmly and firmly state expectations and expect change rather than promises or apologies.
📌 Teacher–student conflicts can be resolved by the teacher imposing a solution, the teacher giving in to the student, or problem solving that gives both teacher and student input; imposing or yielding is best used sparingly outside emergencies.
Further detail
📌 Empathetic listening keeps communication open by avoiding premature advice, solutions, criticism, reprimands, or interrogation and by reflecting both the student’s words and emotions.
A simple active-listening prompt is “You feel… because…,” attributed to Nemec et al. (2017).
An I-message identifies what the student is doing, explains its effect on the teacher, and states how the teacher feels, allowing the student to change behavior voluntarily.
🔄 Codell’s conflict process has four steps (Esme Codell, 2001):
Lee and Marlene Canter proposed assertive discipline (1992; Canter, 1996), and more recent versions emphasize teaching responsible behavior and building mutual respect and trust (Charles & Cole, 2019).
Anger can distort each person’s perception of the other as the villain and oneself as an innocent victim, reducing trust and diverting discussion from the original problem.
Passive avoids clear direction; hostile attacks; assertive is clear, firm, and nonhostile.
★ Must-know
Black and Latino/a students, especially boys, are punished more often and more harshly than other students.
Black students are two to three times more likely than White students to receive an office referral or suspension.
Black and Latino/a students are not punished more because they commit more serious offenses; they are punished more severely for minor offenses such as rudeness or defiance (Huang, 2020).
Further detail
A lack of cultural synchronization between teachers and students and possible implicit biases among teachers and administrators are explanations for racial disparities in discipline (Rudd, 2014).
Schools with higher concentrations of Black and poor students tend to have harsher discipline policies than schools with more White, Asian, or middle- and upper-income students.
Minor misconduct can draw harsher punishment for Black and Latino/a students, even though they do not commit more serious offenses.
★ Must-know
Culturally responsive classroom management has five dimensions:
High-quality teacher–student relationships are central to culturally responsive classroom management.
Further detail
Positive behavioral supports that reinforce positive behaviors have also been successful in culturally responsive management (Long et al., 2019).
Teachers can incorporate students' perspectives into teaching and management to develop culturally responsive strategies (Gaias et al., 2019).
These parents viewed discipline as a means of ensuring: (Golann et al., 2019):
📌 When families and teachers share expectations and support one another, they can create a more positive classroom environment and increase time for learning.
Teachers can partner with families and communities by:
When communicating with families, teachers should use the family's first language when possible and tailor messages to the reading level of the home.
★ Must-know
📌 Teachers can help prevent bullying by communicating with colleagues, increasing adult presence in likely locations such as hallways and lunchrooms, listening sensitively to the victim, and helping the student formulate alternatives.
📌 A bullying incident should be documented and submitted to the principal, and the teacher should arrange a same-day conference with the school counselor to provide another avenue of documentation and reinforce support.
Further detail
Notice and communicate, listen and support, then build empathy.
★ Must-know
Further detail
In a review of about 50 studies, Barak Rosenshine and Norma Furst (1973) identified clarity as the most promising teacher behavior for further research on effective teaching.
Clear teacher explanations and instructions are associated with greater student learning, while vague explanations are associated with less learning.
Teacher enthusiasm is correlated with student achievement gains and is related to student interest in the subject.
Warm, caring, and supportive teacher-student relationships and a positive classroom emotional climate are associated with greater student learning, likely through student engagement.
Expert teachers draw on knowledge of types of wrong answers, the misunderstandings behind them, ways to reteach, previously effective materials and activities, and ways to test whether reteaching worked.
★ Must-know
Further detail
In practice, self-fulfilling prophecy effects seem stronger in the early grades, while sustaining expectation effects are more likely in later grades. - Kuklinski & Weinstein, 2001
Teacher expectations may be influenced by intelligence test scores, gender, prior-teacher notes, medical or psychological reports, siblings’ histories, appearance, prior achievement, socioeconomic status, race and ethnicity, immigrant status, language, parents’ incarceration, learning-challenge diagnoses, weight, student behavior, after-school activities, and class-level expectations.
In a synthesis of over 50 studies, Harriet Tenenbaum and Martin Ruck (2007) found that teachers held higher expectations for and directed more positive questions and encouragement toward European American students than toward Black and Latino/a students, with the highest expectations reserved for Asian American students.
In the Rosenthal and Jacobson study (1968), teachers were told that randomly selected elementary students were likely to make significant intellectual gains, and that group made larger-than-normal gains that year.
In a study of 31 teachers in grades 2 to 7, students of high-expectation teachers ended the year with more positive beliefs about themselves and their teachers and higher achievement than students of low-expectation teachers. - Christine Rubie-Davies and her colleagues, 2020
Teachers’ over- and underestimations of first graders’ math and language abilities predicted standardized test scores at age 15, with a greater impact for students from lower-income families. - Nicole Sorhagen, 2013
Students were more likely to complete college when their 10th-grade teachers held higher expectations for them, and the teachers’ positive biases were weaker when a White teacher described a Black student. - Papageorge et al., 2020
📌 Teachers should avoid communicating low expectations while addressing disruptive behavior, because low expectations and ineffective strategies for lower-achieving students can combine into a double threat for students. - Good & Brophy, 2008
Self-fulfilling expectations begin inaccurate; sustaining expectations fail to adjust.
★ Must-know
To reduce the negative effects of teacher expectations, teachers should use student records and reports cautiously, remain flexible about expectations and grouping, provide challenge with academic and emotional support, support low-achieving students during discussions, use diverse materials, check for stereotypes and bias, evaluate and discipline fairly, communicate belief in every student's ability to learn, involve all students in tasks and privileges, and monitor nonverbal behavior.
High expectations should be paired with academic and emotional support, because high standards without a warm environment are harsh, while warmth without high standards lacks backbone. - Jussim, 2013
Ambitious teaching connects deep subject knowledge and knowledge of students' lives to challenging academic work, holds high expectations for students' capacity to learn, and presses students to think critically and justify ideas with evidence. - Grant & Gradwell, 2010
Plans reduce but do not eliminate uncertainty, so effective planning must remain flexible and draw on knowledge of students, their interests and abilities, and the subject.
In Lesson Study, teachers set learning goals, examine research and curriculum options, design a model lesson, teach and observe it, collect and analyze evidence about student responses, revise the lesson, and have teachers try the revised version. - Lee & Tan, 2020
Further detail
During class discussions, teachers should: give low-achieving students prompts, cues, and time to answer, praise good answers, call on low achievers as often as high achievers
Teachers plan across the year, term, unit, week, and day, and coordinate these levels with state and district curriculum standards.
Lesson Study, called kenshu or mastery through study in Japan, is both professional development and curriculum development. - Wood, 2020
Set goals, study research, design, teach and observe, review, revise, and retest.
★ Must-know
📌 Learning goals should be broad enough to organize instruction but specific enough to guide assessment, and teachers should assess what they teach.
📌 State standards identify the learning outcomes to aim for and influence curriculum and assessment, but they do not specify how teachers should teach.
Further detail
Beginning in 2009, the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices led an effort to establish consistent K–12 standards in English language arts and literacy and mathematics. - CCSSO
Common Core supporters argue that consistent standards can raise expectations and align teaching materials, textbooks, and assessments, while critics argue that the standards constrain teacher creativity, restrict local curriculum choices, and encourage excessive testing.
Standards specify what outcomes to aim for; they do not prescribe how to teach.
★ Must-know
Bloom's taxonomy classifies educational outcomes into cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains, whose behaviors can occur simultaneously.
The revised cognitive taxonomy combines six processes with four knowledge types (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001): remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, creating, factual knowledge, conceptual knowledge, procedural knowledge, metacognitive knowledge
The affective domain has five outcomes in progression (Krathwohl et al., 1964):
Webb's Depth of Knowledge has four levels (Norman Webb, 2002):
Effective learning objectives should: specify changes in students' knowledge and skills, match learning activities to the target, align tests with the targets
Further detail
In Bloom's taxonomy, knowledge, comprehension, and application are commonly treated as lower-level outcomes, while analysis, synthesis, and evaluation are treated as higher-level outcomes, although the hierarchy is not entirely accurate. - Bloom et al., 1956
The psychomotor domain concerns physical ability, including voluntary muscle capabilities such as endurance, strength, flexibility, agility, and speed, as well as the ability to perform specific skills. - James Cangelosi, 1990
📌 In constructivist planning, teachers and students negotiate content, activities, and approaches around overarching big ideas, essential questions, or themes rather than relying only on specific behavioral outcomes. - Borich, 2011
Bloom classifies cognitive processes and knowledge; Webb classifies the complexity of thinking.
| Dimension | Effective management | Poor management |
|---|---|---|
| Rules | Workable, explicit, taught and practiced | Vague or complicated; consequences inconsistent |
| Procedures | Daily routines taught and rehearsed | Routines vary and remain unpracticed |
| Teacher attention | Prepared, monitoring, present with students | Leaves students aimless or focuses on paperwork or one student |
| First weeks | Productive activities and quick, firm responses | Disorganization, unclear expectations, and surprises |
| Style | Typical response | Effect or feature |
|---|---|---|
| Passive | Avoids clear directions or delays response | Behavior may continue |
| Hostile | Condemns or threatens the student | May provoke defensiveness or escalation |
| Assertive | States expectations calmly and firmly | Seeks behavior change without hostility |
Take a 66-question practice quiz on Bullying and Classroom Communication, with every answer explained.
1. A teacher wants students to see the lesson presentation and wants to supervise the room without moving furniture; the current layout also has a crowded central work area. What change best meets these goals?
2. A school is reviewing a classroom before students arrive. Which review best addresses whether the space communicates inclusion and is accessible?
Memorize the key concepts of Bullying and Classroom Communication with 95 flashcards.
How should classroom materials be stored and positioned for student use?
Visible, easy to reach, on enough shelves, and near where students use them.
What workspace layout should learning spaces avoid?
Crowded workspaces, dead spaces, and racetracks.
How should learning spaces support classroom visibility without furniture rearrangement?
Teachers should see students, and students should see instruction.
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