WEEK2

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Sitting in Dr. Ray Lewis's class was an absolute enjoyment. His expertise in the area of classroom management, artistic teaching strategy, sense of humour and student-centered belief made learning from him a great pleasure. In the first session of the lecture, two kinds of responsibilities have been introduced and discussed within the whole class =====

Students who has a strong persoonal responsibility(PR) tend to behave appropriately because they believe it is the right thing to do. Student who has a strong commual responsibility(CR) tend to encourage others to behave appropriately. We have been showed a diagram stating fluctuations of PR and CR when the change of age occurs.
 * Personal Responsibility
 * Communual Responsibility

In the second session, Dr. Ray Lewis introduced four kinds of students: This idea of classifying students into four catergories enables us to deal with students' behaviour on a clear-focused level. Since each of the A, B, C, D students has its own characteristics, it is eaiser for teachers to deal with them using the accordingly suitable strategy.
 * A: Managed by normal curriculum
 * B: Managed within class
 * C: Managed Out of class
 * D: Cannot be managed

In the last session of the lecture, Dr. Ray Lewis lead us into a deeper thinking of education by raising the question:

"Have you wondered why people generally do what they are told by?"

While exploring this question, we started wondering what power we can use as teachers to manage classroom and this was when Dr. Ray Lewis started introducing the Five kinds of power: I really enjoyed the way that Dr. Ray Lewis introduced these five powers---by using descriptive adjectives of a certain occupation that has a certain power to raise students' curiosity, involvement and to make the class entertaining at the same time. Good teachers make wooden theories alive and make complicated ideas simple!
 * Legitimate Power (Role related)
 * Expert Power (Knowledge and skills)
 * Referent Power (Relationship)
 * Coercive Power (Punishment)
 * Reward Power (Reward)

I am not sure whether you would remember that Dr. Ray Lewis was the very first speaker on the orientation day when he mentioned the stages of a good teacher---student focused, professional and artistic. Being an artistic teacher requires intensive teaching, refelction, learning. researching, questioning, etc. Let's work towards this goal!

Min Lu

**Reflection on Second Week's Workshop Author: Haining Lu**

This week’s workshop was designed to help us to digest and actively reflect on what we had learnt in PIA lecture, which was focused on classroom management.

Professor Ray Lewis is certainly an expert in this area, who gave us a wonderful lecture on issues related to classroom management.

In the following workshop, we were divided into small groups and each group was asked to reflect CREATIVELY on the ideas that were presented in the lecture within 60 sec. After discussion, my group decided to do a little role play to demonstrate one of the powers possessed by teachers—coercive power. We supported each other and cooperated well while enjoying the whole process. Other groups gave some fantastic presentations in a variety of ways.

I think this is a successful activity as to serve as an aid to deepen our thinking on how to effectively manage students in class. Everybody was involved in a reflecting and creating process. Also, how to present our own ideas in front a group of people is a necessary skill that a teacher has to possess, which was practised in this activity.

AUTHOR: EILEEN GOMES #15790901 **
 * REFLECTIONS ON THE READINGS FROM THE WEEK OF MARCH 9, 2009



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I would like to focus on the two readings that really enlightened me personally. One was the Dreikur's Theory article and the Teacher's Classroom Discipline in Australia, China and Israel article. This weeks readings were categorized on the topic of discipline.======

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In my opinion, discipline in any classroom enviornment, whether it be for children or students in higher grade levels is something that should be highly stressed upon. It shows respect, knowledge of whose at higher authority and taking control of any situation, good or bad.======

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Dreikur's Theory in a brief summary, encourages teachers to fight their first impulse when a student misbehaves. Teachers need to realize that not all children are perfect, grasp education well and behave properly. All children are different, unique and follow their own minds. Many children learn differently as well, taking their time to comprehend what is being taught and asked of them. There are different strategies to which a teacher needs to focus on bad situations and make them good without causing conflict within the classroom. Many students/children are mostly likely to act out of place when being disciplined only as a cry for help. The articles also expresses encoragement to the student at any opportunity. Recognizing them for their efforts and their awareness of classroom interaction. Reward them for their interests involving their difficulty in their own learning process. The reason for misbehaviour amoung different students is for them to belong to a certain group and give them status.I understand what Dreikur's thoery states but have have to somewhat disagree. I believe when a student does act up in class, disturbing the other students who want to learn would have me to proceed to show discipline, some sort of punishment. Example: No recess and threathen to call parentsIn that case, the student/child realizes what they did wrong and hopefully will learn from their mistakes and NEVER do it again. In some perfect world, that might be the case...but the chances of it happening again might be rare compared to it constantly happening again.======

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For the second article, it focuses on three different countries and their beliefs about discipline. With different cultural upbringing s and aspects, each country would have certain criteria when teaching discipline. A teacher is defined as a leader, “knowledge dispenser “and a disciplinarian. That would be the ideal definition for a teacher. The section which I will concluded with is the discipline styles which were briefly touched upon. I disagree with coercive discipline, yelling at a child is not necessary in a learning environment. The students/children need to trust their teaching role model and scaring them is not the way to approach any misbehaved situation. On the other hand, relationship based discipline creates trust, security and recognition. To true way to do this is to win the children over and teach them the elements of their futures. =====