Teaching Strategies: Incivility in the College Classroom
Broadly defined, classroom incivility is any action that interferes with a harmonious and cooperative learning atmosphere in the classroom. Uncivil student behavior not only disrupts and negatively effects the overall learning environment for students but also contributes to instructors' stress and discontent. The articles in this section describe forms of classroom incivility and ways to reduce disruptive behavior in the college classroom.
Reducing
Incivility in the University/College Classroom (Patrick J. Morrissette)
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~iejll/volume5/morrissette.html
Incivility in the classroom is offensive, intimidating, or hostile behavior that interferes with students’ ability to learn and with instructors’ ability to teach. This paper identifies factors contributing to uncivil interactions in the classroom and provides practical strategies designed to avoid or diffuse such conflicts.
Missed
Expectations: Incivility in the Classroom
http://www.nea.org/he/advo00/advo0003/feature.html
This article discusses how classroom incivility develops, including factors such faculty misconceptions about learning and student maturity, lack of clear communication, and disagreement between teachers and students about expectations for a given course.
Managing Hot Moments in the Classroom
http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/html/icb.topic58474/hotmoments.html
Handling controversial topics and heated discussions can be stressful and difficult. However, controversy can be a powerful tool to promote learning. This article offers instructors practical strategies for turning difficult encounters into learning opportunities.
Managing the Classroom and Relating to Students (.pdf)
(Appendix A from The Penn State Teacher II – scroll
down to pg. 138)
http://www.schreyerinstitute.psu.edu/pdf/PennStateTeacherII.pdf
This link offers advice and tips to beginning teachers about how to establish a comfortable learning environment. Additional treatment is given to handling disruptive students, setting standards relative to out-of-class availability to students, helping students who are struggling academically, and what to do if a student is having personal problems.
Classroom Management
http://www.crlt.umich.edu/tstrategies/tscm.php
[Links to the page Teaching Strategies: Classroom Management with the articles “Managing the Classroom and Relating to Students” and “Incivility in the College Classroom” articles (see above).]
Bibliography of Print
Resources (.pdf)
http://www.crlt.umich.edu/tstrategies/Incivility–bibliography.doc.pdf