Solving Classroom Discipline Problems

This lesson explores what motivates student behavior. Everyone comes into the world with a set of needs, and for the rest of their lives, they struggle to learn how to best meet those needs. In this lesson, you will examine students' needs and learn how to teach to them to meet those needs responsibly.

You may know what approaches don't work with students, but this lesson will explain why they don't work. You will learn about the brain's three control centers and how they affect your students' behavior. You will also learn how to avoid ineffective responses that can only make problems worse.

When discipline is practiced correctly, there are no losers, only winners. This lesson focuses on correct discipline practices. Teachers win because they are able to have their needs met without imposing authority. Students get their needs met because they get a say in the process.

If you just react as situations present themselves, you are going to continually have problems. In this lesson, you will create your game plan for effective classroom discipline. With this plan, you and your students can agree on which behaviors are acceptable and which are not in your classroom.

Now that you have a plan, what do you do when students choose to misbehave? What do you do when they behave responsibly? This lesson introduces actions you can take when students choose to ignore boundaries.

Now that you're halfway through the course, it's time to put your new knowledge into action. In the remaining lessons, you learn how to apply what you have learned to discipline problems that occur in any classroom.

This lesson focuses on solving problems that involve how students relate to and interact with each other. You will learn steps that you can take that will both stop the inappropriate behavior and teach appropriate, responsible behavior.

In this lesson, you will learn active listening and other techniques that you can use to defuse emotional situations. You will learn how to effectively deal with students who continually behave in ways that push your emotional buttons and try your patience.

Behavior problems often result in poor academic performance, either directly or indirectly. This lesson gives you a practical approach to helping students who have chosen to not work to their full potential.

Problems and Independence - In this lesson, you will examine discipline problems that arise out of students' need for freedom and independence. These problems occur more frequently in the preteen and teenage years, but independence can be an issue at any age.

What do you do if you try these new approaches, but they don't work? That's the subject of this last lesson. You will learn additional strategies you can use to solve severe or recurring problems.