CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

Administrative support of classroom management

CHAPTER 4

Data Analysis and Discussion

Our school is struggling to keep our teachers. According to California State University's research, 22% of all teachers in California leave the classroom within their first four years of beginning (Futernick, 2007, p.1). There are many reasons this happens, and just as many ideas of how to stop it. The key to changing high teacher turnover is to give them support in their classrooms; specifically, principals must aide teachers in classroom discipline issues.

Teachers are under increasing pressure to perform amazing feats. They must bring up test scores, meet standards, engage students, and do all of this without excuses. Even though they often encounter, “unexpected problems in motivating and disciplining students,” (Steggerda, 2003, p. 2). There have been many studies examining administrative support and job satisfaction, but few that are concerned with student behavior support.

All teachers at Los Altos high School were given a Likert survey. The survey consisted of sixteen questions about administrative support regarding discipline and classroom management. The surveys were given out on November 9, 2009. Teachers were not required to give their names, but were asked to do so if they would consent to be interviewed by the researcher. Very few teachers agreed to be interviewed.

The surveys were put in teacher mailboxes in the front office. Seventy-six surveys were handed out, and 29 were returned. To keep anonymity surveys were returned by placing them back into the investigator's own mailbox.

Strongly Agree

From above plot we observed that most of the people go in favor of poor administration.

Agree

From above plot we observed that most of the respondents are in favor of given statements.

Neither Agree nor Disagree



Disagree

Strongly Disagree

No Answer

Some respondents are disagree while

Classroom management

Classroom management and management of student conduct are skills that teachers acquire and hone over time. These skills almost never "jell" until after a minimum of few years of teaching experience. To be sure, effective teaching requires considerable skill in managing the myriad of tasks and situations that occur in the classroom each day. Skills such as effective classroom management are central to teaching and require "common sense," consistency, a sense of fairness, and courage. These skills also require that teachers understand in more than one way the psychological and developmental levels of their students. The skills associated with effective classroom management are only acquired with practice, feedback, and a willingness to learn from mistakes. Sadly, this is often easier said than done. Certainly, a part of this problem is that there is no practical way for education students to "practice" their nascent skills outside of actually going into a classroom setting. The learning curve is steep, indeed.

As previously mentioned, personal experience and research indicate that many beginning teachers have difficulty effectively managing their classrooms. While there is no one best solution for every problem or classroom setting, the following principles, drawn from a number of sources, might help. Classroom teachers with many years of experience have contributed to an understanding of what works ...