dealing with disruptive student
A great idea is to redirect the focus.
Hi William,
Let them know that you love their energy level, and you encourage them to participate, but you want them to give others an opportunity to participate as well. Try to make the conversation a positive one and yet encouraging, but get your point across that you need to hear from others too.
Patricia
I had a student in my class last term who straddled the line between "disruptive" and "trying a little too hard to participate in class." By midterm I could see half of my class roll their eyes every time this student's hand went up during a lecture. While I know that this student's intention was to make a meaningful contribution to the lecture, it had become a point oof distraction to the rest of the students. How can I manage this student in the future without discouraging their interest in the class?
I seem to always have a pair of giggling girls in my class, often with a chip on their shoulder about the other students. It's hard to handle sometimes, and I have too much material to cover to stop for Pow-Wow sessions. Sometimes I find it's better to let them say their pieces, comment appropriately, and try to get back on track with our topic for the day.
Oh yes, My trio of men talkers. When I break the class into discussion groups I break-up the 3 men into separate groups. I never say why but they are aware that I want to spread their energy around.
I have 3 men in my class now who discuss constantly while I am teaching. This is a five hour class so I try never to lecture for too long. If I see it has become disruptive I will walk over by them. This often stops the behavior alone. I also break up the class in sections of hands on activity and group discussions. I make sure they have appropriate breaks to helps work off the discussion time and they take it outside.
I had a student like this my first semester teaching and she made me feel as though I could not say anything without comments. I tried talking to her, she responded by going to the program director to say I was unfairly picking on her. It seemed as though there was nothing I could do to curb her behavior, until another student came to my rescue. This other student asked her to keep her comments to herself during class because she was disrupting the discussion, and she said it during the class in front of the whole class! Other students agreed and the disruptive student stopped commenting. I did talk to the defending student and she said that she had had other classes with the disruptive student and could no longer take her behavior, so she felt she had to say something because she felt I was doing a good job but could see that I was having difficulty with the offending student. Even though I wanted to hug this girl for defending me, I told her that as much as I appreciated what she did, she should have come to me and then gone to the program director with any issues she was having with other students.
I had a student two quarters in a row who was extremely disruptive. He would scoff after each sentence in my lecture, make a face, or make an obnoxious comment. I discussed his behavior with him privately, but it did not help -- he knows he's obnoxious and doesn't care! I actually had students who refused to take the class the second quarter, because they refused to be in another class with him. I finally threatened to duct-tape his mouth shut, and it became a kind of code word between us, to let him know I'd had enough.
Trying to redirect their focus can sometimes be very hard to do. But I do agree that if you can refocus them, or even engage them in the learning process they will most times settle down.
What we do in our school, is assign a mentor to students that show a pattern of disruption. They meet for a few minutes, once a week to go over their "behaviour" during the week and any negative/positive comments that were submitted by the instructors. This has been a very affective tool, and most of the mentored students tend to eventually take control of their actions and become more productive students
