An Analysis of Classroom Management in Response to

AITSL Standards One and Four

By Jamie-Louise Gury

A crucial skill for any teacher is that of effective classroom management.

Classroom Management is about creating an environment in which teachers

can teach and students can learn. Learning can be both an active and passive

act of absorbing and processing information as stimuli to the senses, to be later

used both consciously or subconsciously as learned behaviour, knowledge,

meaning, and understanding. Learning is a cultural, social, cognitive,

psychological and emotional process, and as such can be impacted by

numerous factors. A teacher can engineer a Positive Classroom Environment,

in which students want to actively participate, by Knowing Students and How

they Learn (AITSL Standard 1) and Creating and Maintaining Supportive and

Safe Learning Environments (AITSL Standard 4). When teaching adolescent

students in a High School environment a teacher must be aware of multiple

factors that can impact on a students learning, including Adolescent

Development, Motivation, and Sociocultural Factors, as well as being aware of

the various theoretical stances of education, and how a teachers practice would

fit into, and respond to, the theory. In education there is the constant need for

an eclectic approach to classroom management, as a teacher should always

respond to the students at hand and the context in which they are teaching.
The following consideration will be within the context of a small Independent

Baptist Pre-Primary to Year 12 College in the South West Perth Metropolitan

Area, which has classes 20 students in size on average (ACARA). The majority

of students, in this school, are from the lower to middle socio-economic

groupings (ACARA). There are also a moderate proportion of students with

social and learning difficulties and a gender imbalance, with a larger proportion

of male students.

Adolescence is a time of heightened physical, and cognitive development

(Nagel & Scholes, 2016). The adolescent body is undergoing immense change,

which raises issues in terms of classroom management surrounding

unbalanced physical development amongst peers, and adolescent sexual

urges. In order to effectively manage adolescent students, a teacher needs to

be aware of the Physical, social and intellectual development and

characteristics of students (AITSL Standard 1.1). Both males and females have

a development through puberty from induction to maturation, regarding their

physical sexual development, and the progression through this can vary greatly

from student to student, taking anywhere from eighteen months to six years for

females, and two to five years for males (Bahr, 2007). This unbalanced physical

adolescent development can cause embarrassment and tension amongst

peers, and as such it is a factor that teachers need to broach with sensitivity.

However, in order for teachers to Create and maintain supportive and safe

learning environments (AITSL Standard 4), it is also important that these

physical changes are addressed and acknowledged by teachers, so that

students do not feel unsure about their own bodies, nor engage in inappropriate
sexual conduct towards their peers. Sex Education, or Health and Wellbeing,

programs are a necessary element of teaching adolescents about the

biological, cognitive, emotional, psychological and social dimensions of their

physical and sexual development through adolescence. Although a schools

religious ethos may not allow for the explicit teaching of Sex Education, it is

important that schools include programs that teach and inform students about

concepts such as Consent, Respect for Self and Others, Communication with

Others, Healthy Relationships, Biological, Emotional, and Psychological

Changes through Puberty, and Navigating Adolescence.

During adolescence the human brain is undergoing massive development

(Nagel & Scholes, 2016), which requires large quantities of energy and affects

the bodies circadian rhythms, causing adolescents sleep-wake time to shift later

in the day (Crowley, Acebo & Carskadon, 2007). The impact on adolescent

learning for these factors, are that students often report daytime sleepiness,

attention problems, poor school achievement, and exaggerated emotional

irregularity (Giannotti, Cortesi, Sebastiani & Ottaviano, 2002). These factors can

affect a teachers ability to teach content consistently, as students

responsiveness can differ depending on the time of the day and week that a

teacher if allocated to teach them. As such teachers have to be constantly

flexible, in the scope and sequencing of their delivery of content, and keeping

students progressing through a unit of study, often having to address individual

students who may be struggling in particular with their workloads and self-

management. For those students with chronic fatigue it is the schools

responsibility to provide learning plans for those particular students, be that in

the form of having work from home days, or altering student timetables, where

possible. This is so that a teacher can Maintain student safety (AISTL

Standard 4.4), especially for environments such as the science labs and design

and technology workshops, where fatigue can become a safety risk for all

students in a class, and to Support student participation (AITSL Standard 4.1),

so that students do not miss out on too much schooling, and are able to

maintain their academic performance and participation.

Social Learning Theory suggests that learning is a cognitive process that occurs

within a social context (Mazerolle & Eason, 2016) and that an adolescents

cognitive development is the outcome of the interaction between a child, their

carers and teachers and the environment (Nagel & Scholes, 2016). Responding

to adolescent cognitive development, and how the impact on learning, a teacher

must Understand how students learn (AITSL Standard 1.2). Cognition refers to

the mental processes involved in the comprehension and acquisition of

knowledge through experiences and senses, and the manipulation of that

information to make meaning (Nagel & Scholes, 2016). Theories suggest the

development of human cognition during adolescence, is intimately linked to a

students capacity for learning, and the sophistication of their mental processes

(Nagel & Scholes, 2016), as well as interacting with student motivation in the

determination of student outcomes (Zepeda, Richey, Ronevich & Nokes-

Malach, 2015). In order to Know students and how they learn (AITSL Standard

1), and effectively each in response to cognitive development, a teacher needs

to genuinely interact with students and devise both formative and summative

assessments that measure when and how to teach students content. An

extension of this theory is that adolescent students have a predilection for Hot

Cognition, a mental process by which executive functions are influenced by

emotional state, due to lack of development of white brain matter (Nagel &

Scholes, 2016). A teacher needs to be aware of this in their classroom

management and in their management of challenging behaviour (AITSL

Standard 4.3), as a students emotional state will often determine the behaviour

correction strategies utilised, as well as a teachers theoretical approaches.

Motivation is an internal state that prompts, drives, directs and sustains

particular behaviours, and can be both, effected and affected, by extrinsic and

intrinsic factors (Nagel & Scholes, 2016). During adolescence students are

struggling to build their value and belief systems, as they undergo rapid

physical and psychological changes, which can immensely effect their

motivation for learning (Zhu & Chen, 2010). Theories suggest that adolescent

motivation may be centred on the expectancy of success, the perceived value

of a task, and, or, the cost of that task (Mellard, Krieshok, Fall & Woods, 2012).

When combined with negative factors regarding family circumstances, teachers

can find that some students become difficult to motivate and are ineffective, or

unwilling, in motivating themselves in their school work. Negative family

circumstances can range from, parents personal negative attitude and

experience of schooling to, broken family situations and domestic abuse. In

effectively responding to students from these contexts, by developing learning

strategies one on one with the student and providing pastoral support,

developing genuine relationships and trust between students and teachers,

integrating students into the sense of a school environment and community

belonging (Bottome, 2015), having open communication between the school

and parents, as well as the school getting involved legally when necessary, for

the cases of domestic abuse and child neglect, a teacher is acting to support

Students with diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic

backgrounds (AITSL Standard 1.3), and Differentiate teaching to meet the

specific learning needs of students across the full range of abilities (AITSL

Standard 1.5).

It is an elementary idea that the teacher has the roles of the information

provider, the planner, the assessor, and the manager (Harden & Crosby,

2000). However an effective teacher must also play the role of the motivator in

their classroom management, as they motivate students to learn, stimulate and

maintain their interest, and be a model for the opportunities beyond education

(Djigic & Stojiljkovic, 2011). To do this a teacher must Know Students and How

they Learn (AITSL Standard 1), Understand how Students Learn (AITSL

Standard 1.2) and Support Student Participation (AITSL Standard 4.1). A

teacher can generate, and maintain, student motivation by providing learning

experiences that are dynamic and challenging, to an appropriate level, by

demonstrating the value of learning tasks in terms of the immediate and long

term rewards and goals, and through the development of a respectful

relationship between student and teacher in which on-going feedback and

clarity can occur (Nagel & Scholes, 2016). A teacher must also provide students

with the opportunity for self-autonomy and direction in their learning, while also

providing their students with the appropriate scaffolding to fall back on (Nagel &

Scholes, 2016). This is so students can be motivated by the perception of the

learning, and classroom, environment as their own spaces (Nagel & Scholes,

2016), by Creating and Maintaining Supportive and Safe Learning

Environments (AITSL Standard 4).

In terms of the school context previously outlined, a predominant sociocultural

factor that can impact adolescent learning, and a teachers approach to

classroom management, is the presence of students with social and learning

difficulties or disabilities, and specifically those students with Attention Deficit

Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Though it

is not the place of the teacher to diagnose students, teachers do have a

responsibility to be familiar with behaviours associated with different student

capabilities, in order to Differentiate teaching to meet the specific learning

needs of students across the full range of abilities (AITSL Standard 1.5), and

develop Strategies to support full participation of students with disability (AITSL

Standard 1.6). This is with the aim of the teacher being capable of creating and

maintaining learning environment that are supportive, safe and inclusive (AITSL

Standard 4).

ADHD students may present with excessive talking, fidgeting, forgetfulness,

hyperactivity, impulsiveness, and inattentiveness (Nagel & Scholes, 2016).

Strategies a teacher can use to manage these students involves setting clear

boundaries and scaffolding activities and assessment, focusing on a students

strengths, and working to creating content, or assessment, around those

strengths, establishing predictable routines, increasing proximity to the child,

to gain attention, keeping the content interesting, and teaching in a variety of

formats, and developing learning goals with the student on a daily, weekly, and

monthly basis (Nagel & Scholes, 2016). While ASD students can vary greatly

depending on their place on the spectrum, they will typically present with

difficulties in communication, social skills and behaviour (Nagel & Scholes,

2016). Managing ASD students, within an inclusive classroom environment,

would include the creation of a calm, stable and predictable classroom

environment, and providing students with more time to, respond to questions,

and adapt to changes to the classroom and routines (Nagel & Scholes, 2016). A

teacher needs to be aware of these individual students progress and levels of

attention, working to keep students on track, and create projects in which they

can explore their own fixations, utilising a continuum of interventionist and

interactionism teaching, as students with learning difficulties have a tendency to

otherwise superficially engage in learning tasks (Nez, Gonzlez-Pienda,

Rodrguez, Valle, Gonzalez-Cabanach & Rosrio, 2011).

There are three main theoretical positions regarding approaches to classroom

management, which work to create a sliding scale that a teacher can use in

order to be theoretically adaptable to the context at hand. On opposite ends of

the scale are the Interventionist and Non-Interventionist, with Interactionism in

the middle ground. This scale suggests a process from teacher-focussed to

student-focussed practices (Tertemiz & Okut, 2014). Interventionist teachers

rely on the idea that human behaviours are purely the result of external

conditioning, and practice a teaching with high levels of teacher control and low

levels of student involvement (Tertemiz & Okut, 2014). Non-Interventionist

teachers, however, believe that given the opportunity, and the correct support,
students can correct their own behaviour, with teachers preferring high student

involvement and low control levels on their part (Tertemiz & Okut, 2014). The

beliefs held by any teacher when entering a classroom affects their perceptions

and behaviours, and many pre-service teachers have their pre-conceptions

shaken when entering the classroom for the first time, realizing a need for

adaptability in both their performance and philosophies of teaching. A pre-

service teacher who has experienced the school context previously described,

may come to the conclusion that, although one teaching methodology is not the

prefect fit for every situation, an Interactionism philosophy in which solutions to

misbehaviour comes out of a reciprocal relationship between teacher and

student (Glickman & Tamshiro, 1980), is one that can better maintain the

Australian Professional Teaching Standards one and four (AITSL).

Effective classroom management involves adaptability, flexibility,

understanding, control, and respect. Although a teacher may have a desire to

use, for example, a non-interventionist teaching strategy to classroom

management, they will often find that in order to effectively respond to the

students at hand, the teacher may have to employ a combination of strategies,

utilising the teaching spectrum. This is especially so in the context of an

Independent Baptist school in the South West Perth Metropolitan area, with a

greater school population of male students. This need for theoretical

adaptability arises through a teachers response to a variety of physical,

cognitive, motivational, learning ability, and socioeconomic factors that can

affect adolescents and how they learn. These factors can include adolescent

sexual urges and physical differences, fatigue and shifting circadian rhythms,
cognitive development, generating motivation and the impact of family

situations on adolescent motivation, and the presence of students with social

and learning difficulties in the classroom. Teaching requires an eclectic

approach to classroom management that responds to the context at hand, as a

teacher comes to Know students and how they learn (AITSL Standard 1) and

works to Create and maintain supportive and safe learning environments

(AITSL Standard 4).

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