Structuring Classroom Experiences for Success Proactive Management Strategies Using classwide management systems

Understanding the problem While one of your primary goals as a teacher is maximizing student learning, this is rarely students' primary goal. Aside from survival needs such as food, clothing, and shelter, all students in the intermediate and secondary grades share the same primary goal – to gain sense of belonging. Critical elements of feeling like you belong include having a sense of value – that is, that others value and need you and you value yourself and are making a contribution. Another critical element is having a sense of control or empowerment. That is, having some sense of control over your own destiny, even in small ways such as choosing among several options of activities. A third critical element is having a sense of competence, or at least developing competence. Students whose classrooms do not reflect environments conducive to all three of these dimensions (value, empowerment, competence) do not feel successful. As a result, a degree of problematic behavior will always occur.