How do children and youth in the classroom impact on the development of student teachers’ classroom management skills during the teaching practicum? This study approached the problem through the sociology of childhood/youth, using a human development framework, and asked children and youth what role they believe they play in the formation of classroom management skills for teaching candidates. Utilizing a phenomenological method, this study sought to discover the perspectives of children and youth, and student teachers themselves, as classroom management developed. Until now, the role that children and youth play in the development of classroom management for student teachers has largely been ignored. Through a series of observations, focus groups, student teacher questionnaires, and narratives, a portrait emerged of children and youth as active agents in the development of student teachers’ classroom management skills. The key findings indicate that children and youth utilize their agentic status to communicate their needs to student teachers verbally, physically, and through behaviour. A new model of student teaching emerged, suggesting a teaching quadrad where children and youth in the classroom are recognized as playing a role equal to or more significant than that of associate teachers or faculty in the development of classroom management for student teachers.

The Good Behavior Game (Barrish, Saunders, & Wolf, 1969) has been demonstrated to be an effective group-oriented contingency technique to decrease disruptive classroom behaviors. Typically, competing groups of students play a game by following negatively worded rules to attain specified consequences. The present study investigated the effects of rules stated in positive terms in the Good Behavior Game format to increase appropriate classroom behaviors. A class of third grade students was divided into three teams to play the game. The flip of a coin determined daily conditions and the effects of the use of positive rules were compared to the effects of negative rules. A changing criterion, multielement research design revealed both conditions effective in increasing on-task behavior. No differential was shown. However, students did indicate a preference for positive rule game days. It was recommended that research be continued comparing positive and negative conditions to increase academic performance. / Department of Educational Psychology

Taking attendance in classes having large numbers of students is a time consuming task. Most teachers would rather not do so in order to increase instruction time. An alternative way for taking attendance is developed in this project.This thesis describes a Four-Station-Microcomputer-Based Student Logger (FSAL) device designed and constructed for solving this problem. With this portable device, four students can input their identification codes at the same time. Approximately ten seconds per student is needed to register their attendance. In this manner, a class of one-hundred students could indicate their attendance in less than five minutes.Presented herein is the background information about the microcomputer, the hardware design and the software developed for the FSAL device. This device is located in Department of Physics and Astronomy and is planned to be used in the courses ASTRO 100 and PHYCS 100. / Department of Physics and Astronomy

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

Thesis (M Ed) -- University of South Australia, 1993

The primary purposes of this research were to identify if and how a selected teacher and her class experience deep enjoyment as flow in the classroom, and if they do have that experience, to investigate the teaching and learning factors that facilitate that deep enjoyment. In particular this research had the following three aims: 1. to explore the conditions and activities that are identifiable in learner's perceptions of their deep enjoyment or flow in learning. 2. to identify the component characteristics of flow articulated in the learners' stories about their enjoyable learning experiences. 3. to identify and examine perceptions of deep enjoyment or flow in learning in teacher practice and student learning through a teacher's stories of her teaching experience and through classroom observations. The research involved a case study of a teacher in a state school Year 5/6 classroom, and seventeen of her students. Qualitative data were collected from interviews with the teacher, interviews with the students, and field observations recorded in the researcher's journal over a period of several months. These data, analysed by using the NUD*IST software, provide valuable insight into how the teacher and her students perceive their teaching and learning experiences. The children and their teacher do experience enjoyment, often the deep enjoyment of flow in their classroom. A classroom culture was identified that includes teaching characteristics, environmental, and instructional variables, which help facilitate deeply enjoyable flow in meaningful learning. This research concludes that the intellectual knowledge is available which will make flow facilitating classroom cultures achievable. Achieving such a classroom culture is possible when educators identify and value the enjoyment of flow, with its subsequent sense of learner control, confidence, success, well-being, energy and motivation to learn. To do this, educators need to identify and implement the teaching and learning strategies available that facilitate the experience, with the intention of ensuring recurrent learner success from the early years of school attendance. Such a change in the educational ethos would lead to successful, enjoyable and vibrant learning experiences for teacher and learner in the classroom.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Toronto, 2004. / Adviser: C.T.P. Diamond.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--George Mason University, 2008. / Vita: p. 466. Thesis director: Priscilla Norton. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Education. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Aug. 28, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 455-465). Also issued in print.

Dissertation (Ed.D.)--University of Toledo, 2008. / Typescript. "Submitted as partial fulfillment of the requirements for The Education Doctorate Degree in Educational Administration and Supervision." Bibliography: leaves 156-169.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Auburn University, 2008. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 92-104).