The National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) has released a new report arguing that teacher training programs don’t do enough to prepare new teachers for classroom management. Based on syllabi that NCTQ procured from various teacher training programs, they found that a supposedly integrated classroom management curriculum across classes and student teaching is often a cover for a lack of direct training in what it called the “big five”:
- Rules for classroom behavior that are explicitly taught and applied;
- Routines on how to act when working in groups, turning in homework, and so forth;
- Praise for students’ good behavior;
- Consequences for misbehavior;
- Student engagement through the use of interesting lessons with ample opportunities for participation.
As usual, the reaction from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) is critical. Sharon Robinson, the president of AACTE said, “Classroom management is so fundamental to the work of teaching, that I’m flabbergasted. I wish they would tighten up their methodology; they do make such sweeping statements based on small samples, and there is variation in how the standards were applied. … This is an essay, not a research report.”
The NCTQ report looked at 122 teacher preparation programs across 33 states. At most 5 percent of the typical curriculum was devoted to classroom management. Overall, programs spent an average of about eight class periods—or 40 percent of a single course—on classroom management. But only 17 percent of the programs studied addressed all five of the areas identified by NCTQ. Notably, programs tended not to address the technique of how to use praise and rewards; 74 percent lacked this topic. The review also finds that while the programs did include paper-and-pencil assignments on classroom management, they often didn’t give students a chance to practice them. For instance, NCTQ officials found few connections between what was taught in coursework and what teacher-candidates were evaluated on during student-teaching.
This report, which can be found here, is yet another round in the dispute between NCTQ and the AACTE. Typically, NCTQ points out some area lacking in teacher training programs based on whatever course material they can gather from training programs, often without the consent of those programs. The AACTE then defends itself against what it feels are biased essays, not objective reports.
For more information, please visit the following links:
http://www.nctq.org/dmsStage/Future_Teachers_Classroom_Management_NCTQ_Report
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2013/12/teacher_training_in_classroom_management.html
