Student with bad behavior
I believe every semester, you will find one or two students who are angry with financial aid or other outside issue, which will bring their frustration and disturbances to the class. The biggest issue of class interruption is cell phone usage and text messaging. when they are asked to stop they get irritated.Sometime very abusive, and makes it very difficult to continue the class.
I hate to say it but one day one of my class i have the list. Its the same list that students sign when coming to school. I read the list cause i get them about half threw there schooling. By this time they have gotten to where they dont want to know or have chosen to not follow these rules. I feel setting the tone first day and defireing to a hire power( i did not make the rule but i follow and use them.)
Now when i have to ask them to turn the phone off or what every i tell them ley lost a point and try to rememebre day one of my class as well as it was something they signed off on as they entered the school.
There is really no why to make all students happy but i do remind and remind and remind them. So they know its on them, they are not the only one in the class, and they make the chose.
shobha, what discussions do you have with students on the first day of any new class? A clear discussion of the rules of your classroom can go a long way towards building the expectations on the use of any resources while in your classroom. It is also important to discuss the consequences when students do not follow these rules so they are not surprised when you invoke a corrective action based on their lack of following classroom rules. Make use of peer pressure as well with regard to how a single student can disrupt the flow of an entire classroom and when individual students take up critical time such as time that could be used in review of an exam or preparation for a major assessment, students tend to self police themselves. May be worth a try.
James Jackson
I understand what you mean when you talk about bad attitudes. Unfortunately, We run across those few students that think the rules do not apply to them. I will sometimes say to them, "when you think the rules don't apply to you, they were probably written because of you". I will then ask them to stop whatever it is that is inappropriate. If the behavior continues, then a trip to the dean's office usually fixes the issue. If, after all of that, the student continues to offend, then they are excused from class until they decide that they can follow policy.
