Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Matthew Langlois
Participant Information
The student that I observed is an eight year old male in the third grade and will be
referred to as Jake for his protection. He enjoys playing video games outside of school,
particularly the game “Fortnite” as many students also seem to enjoy. Jake has trouble focusing
in class and when engaging in conversation with adults for longer than a minute. He has not yet
been diagnosed with any attention deficit, but it seems likely that he will at some point.
I have gotten to know this student through teaching him in music class. He really seems
to enjoy the theoretical and vocal parts of the class even though he still has trouble engaging
from time to time. When he was assessed for knowledge on rhythm symbols, he able to answer
all the questions correctly. He often engages in class discussion and when asked to discuss
concepts with partners - turn-and-talk - he appears to have a deep interest and can talk at length
I chose Jake because my cooperating teacher and I had to address some behavioral issues
early in the school year. He was using gun gestures and pointing them at his fellow classmates
and accompanying them with sound effects that seemed to clearly emulate the sound of a gun
firing. We created a behavioral plan for Jake that was similar to that of his homeroom teacher’s
plan. It seemed like a logical choice to pick him for the study since we were working with him
Classroom Context
The music classroom is a room significantly larger than the average classroom with a
very high ceiling and two large windows displaying the outside parking lot and side lawn. There
is an adjoining office that is connected to another large room which is currently being used for
storage space. Half the room is set up so that there are three rows of chairs; two columns of five
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chairs with ample walking space in the middle. Jake typically sits in the center row in the middle
of the column. The chairs face the wall adjacent to the windows where there is a whiteboard and
a screen for the projector. The computer is to the left of the screen and a piano is to the right.
There are large cabinets that contain many classroom supplies. On the other half of the room
there is open space, often used for circle games, and the walls are lined with classroom
instruments: xylophones, drums, and boomwhackers to name a few. There is also a table at the
corner opposite the emergency exit where students are given permission to take a break if they
The class that Jake is in takes place at 10:25 am on Thursdays. Students are expected to
participate in all classroom activities and are graded on their participation. The teacher has also
set a social goal: “I will show respect to the teacher and others.” Both the cooperating teacher
and I have both referred back to this goal to redirect students and make them aware of the social
expectation. The cooperating teacher also stresses that the social goals tie into their academic
ones. For example, when is not participating or being negligent of tasks that they were assigned,
the teacher will say something along the lines of “Are you showing me respect by doing that?”.
Then she will engage them in a short discussion concerning how they should behave in music
class. She says that it is important to address behavior because it is difficult for the student to
succeed academically if they are engaged in activities that aren’t class oriented.
Honestly, it has been difficult to observe and implement strategies with Jake because I
was teaching a unit on rhythm with the class. I didn’t realize when I chose him that I would be
more involved with the third graders than other grades so my focus, admittedly, has not been as
close to him as I would have liked. However, this gave me an experience with behavior
management that is much more like the reality I’ll have as a teacher in service.
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Strategies
One strategy that I used was a material incentive with rewards. Emmer and Evertson say,
“When students are rewarded rather than punished, they are more likely to respond positively to
the teacher, thereby contributing to a mutually supportive pattern of interaction.” (p. 172) My
cooperating teacher has an award called “Musician of the Day” which is a small slip of paper
with a selected student’s name on it displaying that they followed the social goal and actively
participated in class. This also doubled as a recognition award. Unfortunately, this was not an
effective strategy in the case of this student. He seemed not to be motivated by the chance to
become musician of the day. My hope was that he would see the example that his fellow
classmates would be setting and try to better himself to show that he was capable of being
“Musician of the Day.” I even confronted him personally and challenged him to be attentive and
respectful to earn it, but he didn’t seem too interested in the prospect.
Another strategy that I used was redirection. “To avoid giving attention to inappropriate
behavior, it is best to redirect behavior by stating what should be done.” (Emmer & Evertson, p.
215) This seemed to often work, but only temporarily. As I mentioned before, his attention span
is quite short and he will often get off task with a couple minutes. If he was looking around the
room instead of up at me, I would calmly call his attention and say something along the lines of
“Look up here please.” If he was acting in a way that is against the social goal, I would call his
A strategy that seems to work the best for relatively little effort is recognition of behavior
that is following the social goal. Not so much like the Musician of the Day but more in the
moment behavior. There was an instance where Jake was playing with the empty chair next to
him and my CT pointed out a positive behavior that those students were doing and immediately
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he corrected himself. He seemed like he really responded to that and I’ve tried implementing that
myself, but it seems more effective when my CT does it. We’ve had many strategies to deal with
Jake’s homeroom teacher has a strategy that involves a 3-strike system. He has 3 strikes
for each day: strike 1 is a warning, strike 2 he loses recess time, strike 3 is calling home and
possibly talking with the principal. My CT and I talked personally with Jake at the beginning of
the year to talk about his behavior and we told him our expectations. In that, we also told him
that we would implement a similar system where we would have only 1 strike in our classroom
and we would just call home. Ever since that, we have had relatively few problems and his
behavior has seemed to improve immensely. We have had to call home twice and he does
sometimes has behavioral issues that seldomly reach major and in one instance escalating, but
References
Emmer, E. T., & Evertson, C. M. (2017). Classroom management for middle and high school
Field Notes
October 4, 2018
● Inference: makes a menacing face to a student, seemingly unprompted
● Facing back of the class when rest of students are facing forward
● Speaking out of turn
● Inference: He speaks out of turn because he has a short attention span and has difficulties
with patience
November 1, 2018
● I inform him that he can receive a Musician of the Day award if he shows respect and is
attentive in class before class starts
● A student tells a joke and he laughs much longer than the rest of the class
● He marches in place and makes gun gestures at the ground during a song
○ I tell him that he cannot do that
● He makes blowing raspberry noises during instructional time
● He tips his chair back on two legs
● He turns around to face back row even though he is not prompted to do so
○ I ask him to face front and listen
● He flails his arms around
● He turns around and talks to another student
● Inference: He does not seem incentivized by the reward
November 8, 2018
● Tipping back in his chair on two legs
● He talks to students in the row in front of him
○ He says, “I’m level 20, Z___.”
○ Inference: He is hearing the students in front of him talk about Fortnite and he
wants to join the conversation by talking about his achievement on the video
game.
● Makes gun gesture at the ground
○ I remind him that it isn’t okay for him to do that by talking to him aside from the
rest of the class
● Slapping his stomach
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