Authentic management: students owning and creating a safe and productive learning environment
Format
Individual Presentation
Location
Vereist
Strand #1
Social & Emotional Skills
Strand #2
Safety & Violence Prevention
Relevance
Hands: Rather than relying on top-down policy decisions or implementing prepackaged approaches to school or classroom management, this session focuses on an authentic, organic means to developing and utilizing approaches that are student centered and owned. Research indicates that meeting student needs as diverse individuals, by using developmentally appropriate and proactive approaches may lead to higher student motivation, engagement, and academic success.
Hearts: Cultivating social and emotional skills which will result in a positive school social climates and learning environments is key for all students especially those risk. This session focuses on cultivating power with instead of power over students (students to make good decisions that benefit themselves and their peers in the learning community. Justification and examining the “why” level behind rules and regulations exist to shift the focus from compliance to doing the right thing for the right reasons. This session is informed by the work of William Glasser and his choice theory, Kohlberg's seminal research on moral development, and recent studies related to issues of youth and violence in schools.
Brief Program Description
Students can create a positive, respectful, inclusive learning environment if empowered to do so. This session helps educators to explore strategies employing an authentic power with versus power over approach, especially with at risk youth. It grounded in works such as Glasser's Control Theory and Kohlberg's stages of moral development as well as contemporary studies of violence in schools.
Summary
Preventing violence and assuring a safe and productive learning community for all students especially those in urban and other signs of poverty is crucial to student success as learners and future citizens.. Rather than relying on top-down policy decisions or implementing prepackaged approaches to school or classroom management, this session focuses on an authentic, organic means to developing and utilizing approaches that are student centered and owned. Research indicates that meeting student needs as diverse individuals, by using developmentally appropriate and proactive approaches may lead to higher student motivation, engagement, and academic success. Cultivating social and emotional skills which will result in a positive school social climates and learning environments is key for all students especially those risk. This session focuses on cultivating power with instead of power over students (students to make good decisions that benefit themselves and their peers in the learning community. Justification and examining the “why” level behind rules and regulations exist to shift the focus from compliance to doing the right thing for the right reasons. This session is informed by the work of William Glasser and his choice theory, Kohlberg's seminal research on moral development, and recent studies related to issues of youth and violence in schools. Such approaches may be key to engaging and building community with disenfranchised students, allowing them to play significant, real and meaningful roles as the creators and implementers of rules for a learning community rather than the recipient of extrinsic reward and punishment systems based on compliance. Participants will examine and leave the session armed with strategies and approaches such as usual learning contracts, peer mediation, proactive approaches to management, and utilizing student voice of leadership.
Evidence
- This presentation is grounded and research and publications by William Glasser, Kohlberg's theory of moral development, Mike like apples concepts of democratic education, and articles written by the presenter including Thornton, H. (2002). “A student perspective on young adolescent violence”. The Middle School Journal. 34(1) pp36-42. The presenter has been in the field of education for 35 years, as a classroom teacher and teacer educator and has experience working with at risk youth not only an urban populations for several populations as well. One of her related presentations include National Urban Education Conference. Savannah. “Holistic Urban Education and Student Needs.”
Biographical Sketch
Dr. Holly Thornton is a professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Appalachian State University. She taught middle school for thirteen years and acted as a teacher leader in establishing Professional Development Schools at the Ohio State University, where she earned her PhD. She taught at Augusta State University in Georgia, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and acted as a department chair in middle/ secondary education at Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah Georgia. She has received National Board Certification as an Early Adolescence Generalist. Holly has served on the board of examiners for the National Association of Colleges of Teacher Education and as a lead reviewer and auditor for the National Middle School Association/ CAEP Program Review Board. She serves on the AMLE Executive Board. She is a member of multiple editorial boards including Research in Middle Level Education, the North Carolina Middle School Journal, and the Journal of Teacher Education. She has multiple publications and national presentations related to educating young adolescents, teacher dispositions and student and teacher empowerment and has published in journals such as Middle School Journal, Teacher Education Quarterly, and Current Issues in Middle Level Education. Her research interests include teacher dispositions, student-centered responsive pedagogy, school reform and collaboration with school partners and teacher leaders.
Keyword Descriptors
student empowerment, learning communities, pro-active management
Presentation Year
2016
Start Date
3-7-2016 3:00 PM
End Date
3-7-2016 4:45 PM
Recommended Citation
Thornton, Holly J., "Authentic management: students owning and creating a safe and productive learning environment" (2016). National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference. 190.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/nyar_savannah/2016/2016/190
Authentic management: students owning and creating a safe and productive learning environment
Vereist
Students can create a positive, respectful, inclusive learning environment if empowered to do so. This session helps educators to explore strategies employing an authentic power with versus power over approach, especially with at risk youth. It grounded in works such as Glasser's Control Theory and Kohlberg's stages of moral development as well as contemporary studies of violence in schools.
