Methods of Proactive Classroom Management

AbsractEducational researchers and classroom teachers have long recognized that skills for managing children's behavior are essential to teaching success. Classroom management, however, has often been associated with discipline or control separate from teaching proper. Recent research on teacher effectiveness has attempted to integrate teaching and management by stressing prevention over remediation. Although it is important for teachers to know how to respond to misbehavior, this line of research suggests that establishing and maintaining a productive learning environment can reduce the frequency with which disruptions occur. These procedures have been labeled collectively as methods of proactive classroom management. This article discusses the major conceptual and empirical advances in proactive classroom management. In so doing, attention is given to ways in which school psychologists can help teachers apply knowledge of proactive procedures to their own classrooms.