Teaching without Classroom Management Coursework: A Case Study Continued—After Student Teaching into Teaching

Abstract

This chapter follows Dana, Conrad, and Robyn from their methods course into student teaching. Then the chapter explores the impact of not having classroom management coursework once they graduated from Public University and began teaching in their own classrooms. It focuses on how each of them: (a) defined classroom management; (b) found their Methods II course useful and applicable to teaching; (c) struggled with classroom management; (d) succeeded in effectively utilizing classroom management strategies; and (e) grew in their understanding and application of classroom management and ways in which they anticipated changing to help improve their classroom management. The chapter concludes with general takeaways from the experiences of Dana, Conrad, and Robyn.

You are on your own trying to figure out how to deal with [classroom management situations] and … it’s one of those tools that you can pull out and try. If you don’t have the ideas then you have to generate those ideas and sometimes it takes a lot longer to do that on your own. … It’s better to have more tools at your disposal. So hearing about them before you are thrown into that situation is always useful.

—Robyn after completing student teaching

I still don’t feel ready [to address classroom management]. I wasn’t tested very much. … I didn’t have very many opportunities to test what I have been doing. Light chatter, I can handle. The occasional disagreement, I can handle. Angry frustrated student I can handle, if it’s one quiet student. There is definitely things that I haven’t really seen that I might be nervous about encountering. I’m not really sure what to do right away.

—Dana after her first semester teaching