Classroom behaviour

This study took as its sample over 3000 children, aged 7-8 years, at school in Chelsea and Somerville, Massachusetts. The index of lead exposure was the tooth dentine lead concentration. Teacher s ratings on 11 aspects of classroom behaviour... 

Fig. 7.9 Teachers negative ratings on classroom behaviour in relation to tooth lead concentration (based on [23]).

The points above may seem to present a rather rosy view of the school. As noted earlier, some lessons we observed were actually fairly conventional in their structure, content and presentation. Also, managing the classroom behaviour of a few children seemed to be of real concern for some staff, who argued that a small number had the potential to disrupt the learning of many others. Furthermore, the family lives of some children were particularly difficult and complex and this too had an impact on their experiences at school. Nevertheless, the culture of Amadeus seems to be shaped by its arts-based curriculum which is premised on valuing all children and believing that each one can achieve in his/her own way. The role of the headteacher in leading and maintaining this core philosophy should not be underestimated. 

Policies and practices that acknowledge, appreciate and celebrate the diversity of students and those in which differences are overlooked, misunderstood or treated with intolerance (gender, social class, ethnicity, academic attainment, classroom behaviours, (dis)ability, etc.)... 

Fig. 2. Classroom behaviour in relation to dentine lead concentration results for 2146 children (after reference 28).

Harvey, P.G., Hamlin, M.W., Kumar, R. and Delves, H.T. (1984) Blood lead, behaviour and intelligence test performance in preschool children. Scl Total Environ., 40, 45-60 Hatzakis, A., Salaminios, F., Kokevi, A., Katsouyanni, K., Maravelias, K., Kalandidi, A., Koutselinis, A., Stefanis, K. and Trichopoulos, D. (1985) Blood lead and classroom behaviour of children in two communities with different degree of lead exposure evidence of a dose-related effect , in Lekkas, T.D. (ed.). Heavy Metals in the Environment, (Edinburgh CEP Consultants)... 

Standardization data were collected on 500 children aged 6-11 years, along with measures of general intelligence, educational attainment and classroom behaviour. Immediate, short-term and long-term (3-month or 6-month) test-retest data were obtained on subsamples. The battery is also being used with 78 children whose blood lead levels have recently been assayed. This paper describes the tests, the developmental trends they reveal and their test-retest stability. 

With respect to the nature of the tasks, we chose a developmental or a design task because we expected that such a behavioural environment (Gilbert, 2006) is closer to the lives of students. Besides, these tasks may offer opportimities for experimentation and hands-on activities in classrooms, when such tasks are meant as contexts for learning macro-micro thinking. 

The observer is a key and active participant in action research since the findings of Ihe research depend a lot on observation and behavioural data [11,12]). Throughout the research, the students were observed at work to get a holistic picture of classroom events by making use of observation checklists. Detailed observation checklists which outlined the criteria to be observed were prepared for each lesson. The criteria to be observed included students motivation and interest, and their participation in the lessons, as well their responses during the different steps of the lessons. Besides the above criteria, for the lessons including use of concept maps, additional criteria were included that relate to the use of concept maps, students understanding of information presented in the fonn of concept maps, as well as their abilities to complete pre-structured concept maps and to draw concept maps from raw data. 

Skinner EA. Belmont MJ (1993) Motivation in the classroom - Reciprocal effects of teacher-behaviour and student engagement across the school year. J Educ Psychol, 85 571-581... 

Rabinowitz MB, Wang J-D, Soong W-T Children s classroom behavior and lead in Taiwan. Bull Environ Contam Toxicol 48 282-288,1992 Ratcliffe JM Developmental and behavioural functions in young children with elevated blood lead levels. Br J Prev Soc Med 31 258-264, 1977 Rigby EP Low lead levels and mental retardation (letter). Lancet 1 421,1977 Rogan WJ, Dietrich KN, Ware JH, et al The effect of chelation therapy with succimer on neuropsychological development in children exposed to lead. N Engl J Med 344 1421-1426, 2001... 

Anyone entering a school building and special work areas will feel the atmosphere of the school or subject ethos. For example, when you walk into a primary classroom the wall displays, the behaviour of the pupils, the relationship between pupils and teacher all make up the culture of the school. If this embraces safety then posters/notices around the school reminding pupils of the need to Be Safe, provide good evidence that the school is endeavouring to promote a safety culture. 

There is particular frustration for teachers regarding the diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) which has increasingly been applied to youngsters with behavioural problems, with estimates of prevalence ranging from one to six percent of children (Lloyd, 2003). Teachers have expressed doubts about the extent to which they feel they can contain these medicated and often violent youngsters within ordinary classrooms. Some suspicion has been cast upon the... 

Three 100-minute sessions of synthesis presentations are organized with 4 presentations (and two experiments) per session (12 presentations per classroom), as indicated in Table 2. Each team makes two randomly selected presentations, in two of those three sessions, and teams A compete with teams B. Noncompeting students vote for the most enlightening presentation (A or B) and this peer vote has a moderate influence on the grade attributed by the professor to the presentation. The purpose of this exercise is twofold cement important concepts, influencing factors and relationships that govern soil behaviour, and train students at communication skills. 

The importance of behaviour policies, procedures and training - this needs to be done on a whole-school and department basis, permeating all aspects of school life and, in particular, teaching and learning in the classroom. 

---