Carolyn M. Evertson

Training Teachers in Classroom Management: An Experimental Study in Secondary School Classrooms

AbstractThe purpose of this study was threefold: (a) to validate principles of classroom organization and management shown in correlational research to be related to management effectiveness in secondary classrooms; (b) to determine if school district personnel could deliver teacher workshops and collect data on implementation of the principles; and (c) to assess whether training in classroom management techniques would provide additional skills to teachers who had already been trained in a statewide instructional skills program. Results indicated that training and observations could be done by district personnel, and the trained group exceeded the control group on both management skills and student task engagement.

Improving Elementary Classroom Management: A School-Based Training Program for Beginning the Year

AbstractIn this article I discuss data from a randomized field experiment conducted in 29 classrooms, Grades 1-6. Treatment group teachers were provided with classroom management workshops prior to the beginning of school and again in mid-October. Control group teachers received workshops at the end of the year only. The experiment was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of a research-based classroom management program and to determine if local site personnel could deliver the program. Results showed that the treatment group teachers exceeded the control group in use of key management principles taught in the workshops, had better student task engagement, and had less inappropriate behavior. This study supports similar findings in secondary classrooms.

Teaching Practices and Class Size: A New Look at an Old Issue

The reduction of class size is one of a number of policy decisions with the potential for direct impact on classrooms and classroom instruction; however, little descriptive information exists about how teachers may adapt teaching practices to take advantage of possible benefits of reduced numbers of students. With few exceptions, studies of class size have examined achievement effects, but have not documented how class size affects teaching practices. Investigators who have addressed this question have reported mixed results. Filby, Cahen, McCutcheon, and Kyle (1980, and discussed in Odden, 1990), in intensive case studies, found that teachers in smaller classes were more able to complete their direct lessons in reading and math, and to develop them in depth; smaller classes functioned more smoothly and were better managed; and students in smaller classes received more individualized attention, had less wait time, and tended to have better task engagement. Bourke (1986) documented relationships among class size, teaching practices, and student achievement in Australian math classes. Teachers in larger classes used more groups and lectured or explained more to students; students in larger classes asked more questions. Teachers in smaller classes asked more follow-up questions, assigned more homework, gave more oral tests, had more direct interaction with students, and made fewer nonacademic procedural arrangements. Teachers with smaller classes followed teaching practices similar to those found in classes with higher ability students. Teaching practices affected student

Tracking the mentoring process: A multimethod approach

This article will argue for the use of multiple methods as a way of understanding and documenting the complex tasks and relationships of the mentoring process. It will describe methods being used in one multisite study of mentors and interns during the induction year. In order to illustrate the usefulness of the methods, the research tools will be described and preliminary findings will be used as examples throughout. First, however, we will briefly summarize the literature on mentoring in order to illustrate the complexity of the issues involved in understanding the process.

Images of Management for Learner-Centered Classrooms

Abstract This essay seeks to identify images of classroom management that are compatible with current images of learning, using scenes from one learner-centered classroom as examples. The increased complexity of classrooms with learning orientations demands more complex views of classroom management, and broader definitions of what “good management” entails. While many tasks of managing work-oriented settings and learning-oriented settings overlap, teachers in learning-centered classrooms must place additional emphasis on examining the social and academic task demands they create, and their implications for definitions of learning. Examples from a writing class illustrate how a model of learning may guide management decisions, and how management decisions may contribute to a definition of learning that is constructed in a classroom over time.

On what can be learned by observing teaching

Direct observation is frequently a key component of teacher performance evaluations. Questions about what can be learned by observing have never been more timely or more consequential. Charting new directions for observation, however, is like honing a double edged sword. Explorations of what can be learned by looking also reveal the limits of looking. But both kinds of knowledge contribute to understandings of what it means to observe and the ways observation can contribute to the improvement of schooling. Recent efforts to examine the nature of ob-

Research on Teaching and Classroom Processes

The search for knowledge to understand and improve the quality and effectiveness of teaching is an endeavor in which educational researchers have been engaged for decades. The focus of this search, however, has changed over time. It has shifted from efforts to identify teacher characteristics that were thought to result in improved student learning, to the development of strategies for training teachers to implement specific curricula. The search has also shifted to the identification of classroom procedures and instructional processes that correlate empirically with greater rates of student academic achievement. The means by which researchers have collected data to guide the search have been diverse, as have the theoretical constructs they have employed to focus their inquiry.

Managing technical change: The human side

Society must consider not only what must be done with schools, not only what must be done with students, not only what happens with parents and communities, but the effect that technology is going to have on the culture of the school. There must be sensitivity not only to technology and changes that it will bring, but to requirements for change relative to peoples beliefs, perceptions, and actions in school settings. This is true across administrators, students, teachers, parents, and members of the community at large. This sensitivity must include understanding of the stages, processes, and needs that people in organizations go through in order to accommodate, otherwise there will not be any accommodation to technology in schools. There is often an implication that introduction of technology will free teachers to teach in ways that are more effective. What is it about technology that fosters this belief? There is another implication that computer technology has inherent potential for more stimulating materials that can engage students and enhance thinking skills and creativity. What is it about technology that leads to this belief?