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 (Morrissette, 2001)
http://www.ucalgary.ca/iejll/morrissette
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.
Managing Hot Moments in the Classroom(Warren, 2000
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 ( 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.
UC-Santa Clara’s
Teaching Toolbox: Classroom Civility
http://teaching.ucsc.edu/tips-civility.html
Definitions and resources related to incivility in higher education; includes a section about responding to specific kings of incivility, including: 1. Annoyances and minor disruptions, 2. Dominating discussion, 3. Aggressive challenging of teacher, and 4. Disputes between students and demeaning comments.
Managing Classroom Conflict (University of North Carolina, 2004)
http://cfe.unc.edu/pdfs/FYC22.pdf
Newsletter from UNC Center for Teaching and Learning addressing classroom conflict. Includes a section about preventing incivility by promoting social cohesion in the classroom.
Bibliography of
Print Resources (1999)
http://www.crlt.umich.edu/tstrategies/Incivility_bibliography.doc.pdf