Author: Michaela Jubilo

Do you ever reach a point where you’ve just had it with your students—they still aren’t following directions you’ve repeatedly delivered, they’re still talking not so quietly in the back of the room, and too many of them are still turning in work that has been dashed off at the last minute? So what do you do? March into class and more or less let them have it? Well, if you do, you certainly are not alone. In a study of teacher anger, researchers asked students to think of a specific teacher who had become angry in class and...

Difficult students are a potential problem for every faculty member. This is why it’s important to learn ways to deal with inappropriate or disruptive student behavior. In an email interview with The Teaching Professor, Brian Van Brunt, director of the Counseling and Testing at Western Kentucky University, and Perry Francis, professor of counseling at Eastern Michigan University, addressed some of the key issues involving these types of students. What are some common behaviors of difficult students? Brian: Some behaviors that I have experienced in the classroom that I would consider disruptive often center on inattentive behaviors and those indicating...

Losing control of the classroom can be one of the most frustrating and intimidating experiences for both new and experienced teachers. Losing control can happen in several different ways. The most common would be where the class is distracted. This could be from a situation outside the classroom such as noisy conversation in the hall, or from an event elsewhere that students find out about, such as a rumor of the football coach getting fired. Losing control can also happen within the classroom, such as when one student monopolizes the discussion, or where there is a general lack of...

There is nothing more disheartening and stressful than having to formally accuse a student of cheating on an exam. Was the student looking at his neighbor’s exam or just glancing away from his test for a mental break? Did the student ask someone how to fill out the name portion of the instruction page, or did she obtain an answer to a test question? Did the two students with identical written answers prepare study notes together or cheat off one another while someone was asking the professor a question during the exam? Since few students would ever admit to...

The influential 2000 National Reading Panel report Teaching Children to Read examined 14 experimental studies that sought to determine whether encouraging reading had an impact on improving reading achievement. Following their analysis, the panel concluded that the collective results did not provide clear evidence that encouraging students to read more actually led to improved reading achievement. Of the few studies that did find gains in student reading, “the gains were so small as to be of questionable educational value.” (p. 3-26). In short, the panel concluded that the research has yet to prove that sustained silent reading efforts lead...