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Chapter 5: Intentionally Promoting Clear and Shared Classroom Expectations: The Cornerstone of the Effective Classroom

From Transformative Classroom Management. By John Shindler. ©Allyn Bacon Pub.

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In this Chapter:

• What are classroom expectations?
• Where do expectations exist?
• Levels of classroom expectations
• Why to be concerned with intentionally promoting classroom expectations.
• Strategies which are most effective at intentionally promoting clear, positive, and shared expectations.
• Examining classroom expectations within the One and Two-Style classroom management approaches.

What are Classroom Expectations?

In any classroom, expectations are ever-present. Whether they were promoted intentionally or unintentionally, whether they exist in the minds of students consciously or unconsciously, they are there continuously defining the feel and function of the classroom. Students use their expectations to answer the questions in the class. These include the practical questions such as:

• What are the directions for this activity?
• How am I being graded on this project?
• What would happen if I decided to get off task?

And they include the larger questions, such as:

• Do I find the learning that I am involved in meaningful to me?
• Does the teacher respect me?
• Am I emotionally safe in this class?

It is useful to recognize that all teachers are constantly projecting expectations, and all students are continuously interpreting what they perceive the expectations to be for any situation. Things that are said, things that are done, patterns of action, body language and one’s tone of voice all send out information that students invariably interpret. Over time, these interpretations lead students to construct answers to their questions and make judgments about what they understand is expected within the class. Put simply, students learn what to expect in the future by what they have experienced and observed to be true in the past.

Where do Expectations Exist?

Indispensable to the transformative classroom will be the presence of intention and awareness. The means to achieving these qualities will be dependent on our ability to develop clear and shared expectations among the members of our class. In fact, by definition any classrooms’ expectations only exist to the degree that they are clear and shared. In the effective class, students know where things are going, how they fit in, what is expected of them, and trust that others do as well.

The idea that expectations exist as shared concepts and ideas seems rather abstract. However, a careful examination of a few classrooms will help validate this notion.

For instance, most of us have observed a class in which all the students seemed to be on the same page, and knew what was expected of them, with very little “telling” on the part of the teacher. Contrastingly, we have observed classes in which there were long lists of rules on the wall, and the teacher made constant pleas for orderly behavior, yet the majority of students seemed to be working off conflicting scripts, and the energy in the class could best be characterized as divergent and chaotic.

Chapter Reflection 5-a: Recall the classes that you have observed that seemed to have a shared sense of purpose and direction. What do you think contributed to that environment?

So how do we create a classroom in which our students are all in congruence about those practical classroom realities that would work to their benefit? In this chapter, we will examine various strategies for creating intentional expectations.

Types of Classroom Expectations

Before we examine how one would go about attempting to promote shared intentional expectations, it is useful to make some distinctions about the various types of expectations that operate within any classroom, and the ways that this idea will be used throughout the remainder of the book. It might be helpful to classify the expectations within any class from least to most conscious and/or conspicuous beginning with 1) unconscious expectations, followed by 2) explicit but unwritten expectations, and then finally, 3) written rules, classroom constitutions or social contracts.

In Chapter 3, we examined the idea of unconsciously conveyed expectations. We noted that, as teachers, we need not try to communicate our biases, preconceptions and motives. They will find a way of affecting what we say and do. Recall the teachers in the Pygmalion in the classroom study (Rosenthal & Jacobs, 1968), in which they were told that some of their students were “rising stars.” These teachers were entirely unaware that their implicit expectations were having such a dramatic effect on how they were teaching. Because of this powerful effect, recognizing and making the deliberate effort to bring to our conscious awareness our unconscious expectations will be critical. While it is possible to project primarily intentional expectations to our students, it is important to keep somewhere in the back of our minds that we will struggle to promote healthy and functional explicit expectations, if we have a substantial amount of unexamined dysfunctional expectations operating like computer viruses to corrupt our intentional efforts.

The number of expectations that could potentially exist in any classroom is countless. If we began to list all the behaviors that we desired from our students, we could identify hundreds. So while it is tempting to try to capture all of our expectations in a set of written rules, it will be ultimately counterproductive. Therefore we need to make a distinction between the mechanisms for achieving some basic guiding ground rules/principles and promoting the endless number of other expectations that we want students to hold. In Chapters 9, 10, and 11 we will examine the process for creating and implementing a formal social contract. While the social contract will include all levels of expectations in principle, in practice it will focus primarily on the formal guiding principles in the class. It will include the basic rules that the class has agreed to follow and the logical consequences for when students choose to violate those rules. For example, the social contract may include a rule related to being on time, and a consequence for being late. The rule will include an expectation (i.e., there is a value to being on time), but it is further formalized when it is termed a “rule” (e.g., when you are late, then the consequence for violating that rule is that you will lose the opportunity to do __.)

In this chapter, we will examine how our largely unwritten expectations are promoted. While the development of the social contract will act in concert with our efforts to promote our classroom expectations in general, we need to take a systematic approach to the development of the countless number of unwritten expectations within the class.

Chapter Reflection 5-b: I recently heard two teachers talking early in this school year. They were each lamenting that they struggled to get the kind of learning outcomes that they wanted because of some of the misbehavior exhibited by their students. One of the teachers expressed the belief that he did not feel he should have to actively help the student behave better, that “they should be able to do that by now.” The other teacher took the position that part of his job was to support more functional behavior on the part of his students. Which teacher would you guess had fewer behavioral problems as the year progressed? What are your feelings about each teacher’s position?

The Benefits of Promoting Clear and Purposeful Shared Classroom Expectations

There are a whole host of benefits to intentionally promoting clear and shared classroom expectations. They include those that are more obvious such as:

· Students know what to expect and they understand the learning tasks better.

· Things in the class run more smoothly with less confusion.

· Students have a clearer sense of what it takes to perform.

Some benefits are less obvious, such as:

• Expectations that are clear and shared are essential to help foster the cause-and-effect relationship between actions and consequences that are at the heart of functional frames, an effective social contract, and the logic to the reasonable and related consequences for that contract. Without clarity and a shared understanding, consequences feel arbitrary, and as we will discuss further in Chapter 10, the result is that they will have less benefit and be experienced as more punitive and result in more resentment and less behavior change.
• The absence of clear expectations will create practical problems and an environment of uneasiness in the class that will lead to confusion, frustration and hostility when expectations clash.
• An intentional approach to promoting expectations helps them become more concrete and meaningful. When expectations exist as words (or even less effective privately-held assumptions), they remain abstractions. They must be “operationalized” to be effective.
• Expectations help the class interpret events and actions as examples or non-examples of “things that are making us better.” For example, a funny comment can be either hurtful or act to amuse the group. The clarity of the expectation provides a means for helping members of the group understand which it is. The result is a class that feels more liberated to act, with less fear that what they do or say will be unwanted or unacceptable to others.

• A foundation of clear and shared expectations is essential for creating either a 2- or 1-Style classroom. In the absence of clear expectations, the teacher-centered class will inherently manifest 4-Style characteristics, and attempts at student-centered management will likely result in a descent into a 3-Style environment.

Chapter reflection 5-c: Examine an environment in which there is a lot of anger, resentment, and pain-giving. As you examine it more closely, do you find a desire on the part of those involved to create clear expectations? Perhaps, if they are tired of the frustration, but if they have developed a habit of attack and retaliation, you will notice that the expectations are rather vague, and the parties like to keep it that way. Why do you think this is?

As teachers, the more deliberate and intentional we are about promoting our classroom expectations, the more effective we will be. Moreover, the expectations that guide the class will be those that are desirable and that lead to the mutual benefit of teacher and student.

Intentionally Creating Positive Expectations: Which Strategies Are Most Effective?

As one examines how expectations are intentionally cultivated in a classroom, it is evident that some strategies demonstrate a greater capacity to promote quality behavior than others. We could say that the most effective intentional strategies would be those that function to do the following:

1. Promote, in the minds of students, a greater sense of clarity of the expectation.
2. Promote, in the mind of students, positive associations with the desired behavior implied in the expectation.

Using this principle, if we were to evaluate the effectiveness of the most commonly incorporated strategies, according to their ability to create positive expectations, we would observe a substantial variation in effectiveness. An approximation of the effectiveness ratings for each strategy is offered in Figure 5.1.

Figure 5.1: Approximate rating of common management practices related to their ability to create clarity of expectations and a positive association with the expected behavior, from most (four stars) to least effective (no stars).

Practice	Clarity rating	Affect rating	Overall	What they promote Related to the management Effectiveness continuum
Purposeful Action § Consistency § Follow-through Positive Recognition Clarifying Statements/Mantras Clarifying Questions Expectation Cues Debriefing Written Expectations	+ + + + + + +	+ + N+ N+ N+ + N	**** **** *** *** *** **** **½	Strategies that do a great deal to create cause and effect clarity and positive associations related to the expectations. Use promotes movement up the effectiveness continuum
Personal Recognition/Praise Warnings Requests	N N+ -	N+ N N-	* * ½*	Strategies that do little to promote expectations and create inconsequential or confusing emotional climates. Use promotes little movement up or down continuum
Negative recognitions Irrational or Negative Actions Threats and Put Downs	N- - -	- - -	½ * 0 0	Strategies that do very little to promote clarity and do a great deal to create negative associations with the desired behavior. Use promotes mostly movement down the effectiveness continuum
Boundary Setting Assessing Behavior	NR NR	NR NR		Strategies that vary greatly depending on how they are used.

+ demonstrates high levels of effectiveness in this area

N+ demonstrates some effectiveness

N is neutral or inconsequential

N- does a bit more harm than good but has an effect

- does mostly harm

NR (no rating) can vary from + to – depending on how they are used

Each of these strategies rated in Figure 5.1 is examined in more depth, in the following sections, beginning with the most effective and progressing to the least.

Purposeful Action

Purposeful Action on the part of the teacher is rated at the top of the list for the simple reason that “actions speak louder than words.” No matter what we say, students learn about our class from what we do. In a sense, words are technically action, but in an operational sense, they can also be perceived as inaction. Actions demonstrate that we are committed to our words. Actions take more effort than words, so students learn what we value and who we are by what we make the effort to do. Conversely, inaction sends a powerful message as well. When we fail to follow through on our agreements or responsibilities, we undermine the cause-and-effect relationship between choices and consequences in the class, and shift the locus of control away from the student (internally) to ourselves (externally). When we complain as opposed to take action to change the problem, we show the students that we are more interested in image management as opposed to the quality of the learning in the class.

Our actions are the primary means by which we promote the responsibility-freedom social frame (recall Chapter 2) in the class. These lessons are learned in most cases thought indirect or social learning. For example, when there is a classroom expectation that is collectively understood (e.g., following directions, show respect to other students, fulfill one’s student responsibilities, etc.), and students successfully meet it, we can take action to give the student more freedom or self-determination related to that expectation. Positive recognitions will also be useful as we will discuss [later], but a change in practical action will have an even greater effect on the development of the expectation. Conversely, when we have set up an expectation that implies that if the student does not do A, then in our role as teacher we are responsible to do B (e.g., deliver a consequence, support the student’s efforts to improve their behavior, etc.); if we do not [follow through], it sends a very concrete and observable message to students that the expectation is weak or non-existent. As we examine the idea of the social contract in Chapters 9, 10 and 11, the powerful and essential role of the teacher’s action in the development of an effective classroom governance system will become more apparent.

In the next chapter, we will discuss what could be referred to as “technical management,” the procedural dimension of the classroom management process. Here we will examine why the cornerstone to the development of effectiveness in this area is the purposeful use of action such as teaching and practicing one’s procedures, as well as the fundamental ineffectiveness of such passive strategies as disappointment or verbal criticism.

Chapter Reflection 5-d: Recall teachers that you have had in the past, or have observed recently. Contrast those teachers that tend to take action and follow-through on the agreements versus those teachers that did a lot of telling but seldom took action. In which classrooms were the expectations clearer? Which strategy was more effective at changing behavior?

Positive Recognitions

What we term positive recognitions are incidents in which the teacher points out that something that is happening is desirable for an individual student and/or the class as a whole. What is being positively recognized or encouraged can take the form of good ideas, quality performance or effort, behavior that meets important expectations, and/or any behavior that is judged to be beneficial. Positive recognitions have a powerful effect. However, we need to first distinguish them from what we term personal recognitions or praise. Positive recognitions highlight behavior, whereas personal recognitions/praise call attention to the “agent” doing the behaving. As we will discuss in more detail in Chapter 7 related to motivation, praise, by its nature, leads to dependence on an external source, and is not readily associated with learning. Positive recognitions create clarity of the task and encourage the student’s own internal goals and interests. Let’s examine an example related to listening. A common phrase that many primary teachers use is, “I like the way Maria is listening.” Compare that phrase to, “It’s great that we are listening so well, notice how much easier it is to . . . ” The first phrase may sound like a positive recognition on first site, but let’s examine it more closely. What do students infer when they heat it? Maria will hear something to the effect, “the teacher likes me because I am being good.” The other students likely hear, “the teacher likes Maria because she is being good.” It does little to create clarity of the expectation, or to reinforce the need for the expectation. Personal Recognitions are more effective than negative recognitions such as who is not listening, but they run the risk of having these negative effects associated with praise, that is operating as an emotional extrinsic reinforcement of persons, not behavior (Kohn, 1999).

Consider the phrase, “I see this group has taken care to organize all the ideas that they brainstormed before they started to create their poster; this will help the quality of their end result.” It represents an example of a positive recognition of a behavior, in this case the collective behavior of a group. Notice the specificity of the feedback. The effect will be that it will feel positive and encouraging to those that received the recognition, but it does not sound personal. And it will have the effect of modeling that quality performance to the other students.

Positive recognitions can be focused primarily on either the collective, or on particular individuals or groups. There are advantages to each level of attention.

The advantages of recognizing a collective accomplishment include:

1. The group feels that, in a sense, it has “won as a team.” This experience will help develop communal bonds within the group.
2. The members of the group are given the chance to recognize that it is possible to trust that others will do their part as they do their part.
3. The focus of the reinforcement is more readily associated with the accomplishment of the behavior rather personalities.

While these emotions experienced by the members of the recognized group are subtle, over time they can have a powerful cumulative effect. The group feels a progressive sense of pride and cohesion as their efforts are acknowledged. With time, the group begins to associate collective function with fulfilling the need for belonging. In addition, the growing level of trust generates acceptance and a feeling of emotional ease.

Chapter Reflection 5-e: Judge the assumption above for yourself using your own experiences. Recall a situation in which you found yourself working with a group of people that you worked well with and grew to trust. Recollect your level of anxiety. How about your acceptance level of what was taking place? Now recall a situation where you found yourself working with a group that you did not trust very much. Where was your level of anxiety throughout the process? How critical were you of the final outcomes in each case?

When we evaluate the use of positive behavioral recognitions of collective behavior in relation to our two principles for judging the quality of expectation promotion strategies (see Figure 5.1), why it is so effective becomes more evident. Collective positive recognitions have the effect of identifying behavior very specifically and therefore making expectations very clear and concrete. In addition they act to meet student’s basic needs for power, competence and belonging, and therefore create a very positive association with the behavior that is expected. Overtime, their use promotes a steady progress up the management effectiveness continuum to greater levels of function.

Pedagogical suggestion box 5.1

If generating the language for your positive recognitions is not coming easily, the following phrases may be helpful general examples:

· This group just _______-- that is a great idea that I had not thought of.

· I am seeing people doing a good job of taking the time to ______ before they ____ .

· I love the creative ways that we are approaching _______ .

· I appreciate that you are putting so much care and attention into _____, it will pay off when we ________.

· Do you remember that we had trouble with this two weeks ago? Now see how well we are doing.

The advantages of recognition of individual or individual group behavior are:

1. The teacher can specifically recognize a particular behavior that they want other students to model.
2. The teacher can recognize a student publicly in a way that can be motivating.
3. The teacher can use the recognition to shape[1] a behavior or help a student recognize a skill, ability, or accomplishment.

Recall the social learning model from the previous chapter--the power of positive recognition becomes more evident. When the teacher recognizes a behavior or academic performance demonstrated by a particular student that exemplifies quality effort or thinking, or clarifies the requirements of the task, the effect is that the other students have information that they can use. When we silently observe and evaluate student performance on a task, we tend to learn a great deal about what would help the students do better. This is typically the case. Students work in isolation and we gain the benefits of insight as we monitor their learning. However, when we make audible what we have observed in the form of positive recognitions of high quality efforts and task clarifications, the students gain the benefit of our insight.

For example, instead of walking around the room and giving students simply task completion feedback, such as “You have 5 minutes left,” or making praise statements such as “good job,” we will have a much greater impact if we find concrete behaviors to recognize that will teach the class as a whole lessons, such as “I hear some groups making a rough copy of their poster layout before they start drawing on their poster board, that seems like a good idea.” The effect of the use of public positive recognitions has the effect of being both a powerful teacher of the collective as well as a highly emotionally satisfying form of encouragement, or what we might call “healthy praise” to the one being recognized.

Chapter Reflection 5-f: If you do not already provide your students with frequent and intentional positive recognitions, you may want to take part in some active research in this area. For some amount of time--an hour should be sufficient--find as many opportunities as you can to make positive recognitions. After the hour, note the degree to which the students show a clear understanding of and investment in the task. Also note the affect in the room. Does it feel more positive and focused?

Clarifying Statements, Directions and Mantras

A clarifying statement is one in which the teacher (or in some cases a student) simply states the necessary behavioral expectation. For example, “we are making sure that we are getting all the notes we need to present our ideas in a couple of minutes.” This kind of statement does not assume that anything is happening or is not happening currently. It is not a positive or negative recognition. It is simply a neutral clarification, stated positively.

Clarifying statements work like focusing a lens. They do not change the picture, or interpret it. They just help the students refocus their efforts a bit more intentionally. When the teacher uses a clarifying statement such as “we are all giving Sandra our undivided attention right now” (as Sandra is sharing an answer to the members of the class), there is no judgment about what is not happening, praise for what is happening, or new information. It is just a statement to help focus the expectation lens more clearly. It affirms the expectation was already understood, but may have been a little fuzzy.

Providing good direction in any activity is critical. And as the use of clarifying statements, “expectation mantras,” and positive recognition acts to further define any task, we have powerful tools for making our learning targets clear and “standing still,” (Stiggins, 2001) without the need for constant explanations or negativity. In the next chapter, we will discuss a systematic method for giving directions that promotes accountability and a culture of responsibility.

Expectation Mantras

Finally a highly effective but underutilized strategy for clarifying expectations is the stating of “expectation mantras.” Mantras are repeated phrases that help shape a desired behavioral expectation. Mantras act on the conscious level as clarifying statements and on the unconscious level to condition thinking. For example, an example of a mantra phrase would be, “in this class we . . . listen to one another attentively, take care of our equipment, say only life-giving statements to one another, raise our hands when we have something to say, persist and stay positive without quitting or getting negative, learn from our mistakes and move on quickly, etc.” No matter how familiar or unfamiliar the content of the mantra statement is to the students, how accurately it represents the current state of affairs, or how trite you think you may sound saying it, give it a chance. Mantras work to the extent that they are stated repetitively.

Regardless of the students’ existing level of performance in relation to any particular behavior, mantras act to raise the level of quality of that behavior in the direction of that expectation. For instance, if you inherit a class that demonstrates a habit of disrespect, it will be effective to employ the mantra, “in this class we do a great job of listening to each other and respecting each other’s opinions.” While at first it may sound a bit odd to the students (as they see evidence that this is not currently accurate), over time as they hear it repeated, and as you reinforce respectful behavior and show no tolerance for disrespectful behavior, you will see behavior change. The mantra begins to become internalized. Moreover, your use of the mantra sends a message to your students that you believe in them, will only accept the best they have to offer, and will not give up on them. Over time you will see not only behavior change but also a change in their self-concept related to the particular expectation. Ultimately, the evidence that a mantra has been substantially internalized will be when you begin to hear them come out of the mouths of the students as they interact with one another.

Clarifying Questions

Clarifying questions ask students to reflect on their actions in relation to an operating behavioral expectation. For example the question, “Looking at the clock, at which stage of the process should you be right now?” has the effect of prompting the students to consider their level of progress in relation to the amount of time that they have to complete the task. When compared to clarifying statements, clarifying questions have the effect of eliciting not simply recognition of the expectation but also subjective interpretation.

To illustrate the difference, it may help to examine an example of each type of statement related to the same expectation:

• Clarifying statement – “Make sure you are all doing a good job of your cooperative group roles.”
• Clarifying question – “How would you say you are doing fulfilling your cooperative group roles so far today?”

Each statement will have the effect of focusing the expectation lens. Neither is judgmental or distracting. However, it is instructive to reflect upon what types of thinking each will elicit. The clarifying statement effectively brings awareness to the task. However, the clarifying question adds the dimension of promoting reflection as well. In the clarifying statement, most likely few students will hear the implication related to the quality of the task. Mostly they will just hear, “make sure you are on task.” In the clarifying question, the students are encouraged to consider the quality and effectiveness of their efforts to a greater degree.

When is it best to use a question rather than a statement? It will depend of course on the situation. But a general principle might be to use questions more frequently when the particular expectation has already been shown to be clearly understood and demonstrated at least once. Before then it will likely be more frustrating than useful.

Expectation Cues: Telling vs. Expecting

When we tell a student what to do, we are in essence, keeping them dependent on our instructions to perform. As the classroom expectations become more internalized, we can begin to simply expect, and then recognize, rather than telling. We can accomplish this with the use of expectation “cues.” Expectation cues are key words that represent a broader series of behavior (Cues will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter). A good example of a cue word is “ready.” If we operationalize the concept of ready successfully, the result is that this one word can represent an extensive set of knowledge, skills and dispositions. Consider the following two statements:

Case A: Telling

“I want you all to get ready to go”

Case B: Expecting

“I am looking for a group that looks ready.”

In the first statement, the students are told clearly what they need to do, and if they understand what “ready” means, it will function as an effective request for students to act. In the second statement, the implicit assumption is that the students already know what ready means, what is required to meet the expectation (in this case to move with a sense of urgency to get prepared for a new activity), and what potential consequences might be for meeting or not meeting the expectation.

So what is the difference? It will depend on how the cue (cause) is supported by consequences (effect). If there is some advantage or benefit to being ready when the teacher says they are “looking for a ready group,” the students will move with a sense of urgency. What is the benefit, advantage or consequence for being ready? It could be getting to go first, or some other privilege, a common understanding that time is of the essence, or the awareness that being ready demonstrates respect to the other members of the class.

Within the 2-Style approach, “ready group” competition is a powerful technique. Even if the reward is as small as getting to go first, students will act quickly to get ready. However, it has the effect of defining the purpose of getting ready quickly as getting to go sooner. Within the 1-Style approach, it may be effective to incorporate competitive incentives early in the year, and as students begin to internalize the value of the expected behavior, weaning them off the extrinsic incentives over time.
For those attempting to incorporate a 1-Style approach it will be helpful to progressively tap into more intrinsic forms of motivation for meeting expectation, such as the realization that it shows respect to the other members of the class, as the year goes on.

When is it best to use expectation cues rather than directions? As with the choice between clarifying statements or questions, it is best to be as direct and concrete as possible at first, and as the expectation becomes better understood both conceptually and practically, one will find that using expectation cues the majority of the time will get the best results.

Debriefing

Debriefing with our students after an activity can be a powerful method for clarifying the expectations within that activity (Roth & Lavoie, 2002). It is especially effective for clarifying concepts and skills that could benefit from being operationalized. For example, we may have an expectation that groups use active listening during a cooperative learning activity. The concepts and skills related to active listening are rather abstract and unfamiliar to most students. Debriefing can help make them more concrete and behavioral. In this case, we may ask the students “who can share an example of a member of their group who did an especially good job of active listening?” Once they identify the person, we will want to encourage the students to be very specific about what that group member did in very behavioral terms, as well as the benefits the group experienced as a result of that members actions – in this case being good active listeners. Debriefing can be useful to clarity a broad range of expectations from what makes for an effective procedure to the elements that define quality for a product or performance. When we debrief we are in essence, using the effectiveness of the positive recognition, yet making it even more powerful as it requires students to generate the concrete examples of the concept themselves. Moreover, when they are positively recognized by our peers it is typically more rewarding than when it comes from us. When we examine the potential of debriefing within the lens of our two principles for what makes expectations effective, we find that it is exceedingly effective at promoting both clarity as well as positive feelings related to the behavior.

At its essence debriefing is an inductive exercise in identifying the concrete, specific ingredients to a concept of task. In practice it can take many forms. Therefore, we can use it however it best suits the needs of the situation and the nature of the task. In chapter 13, we will discuss how it can be used within cooperative learning, and in chapter 21 as part of a process assessment system.

Stolovitch (1990) offers a six-step process for debriefing following highly interactive activities. As you examine the sequence of steps you will recognize that the process moves from more concrete and practical to more abstract and general.