Cooperative discipline is community based and requires teachers to hear students and help them achieve a sense of place in the classroom. Teachers will notice out of place behaviors specifically:

*Revenge Seeking- Rude remarks, destruction of materials, direct attacks
*Attention Seeking- Excessive noise, off-task behaviors
*Power Seeking- Challenging the teacher, incompliance
*Avoidance of Failure- Withdrawn, avoiding work

Noticing these behaviors and discerning their cause is the first step towards correction. Rather than telling students to stop these behaviors, cooperative discipline suggests using this incident to model or introduce better ways of achieving in the classroom environment. Some useful examples include:

*Revenge Seeking- Meeting with the student in a calm manner and trying to build a rapport with each student.
*Attention Seeking- Using proximity as well as "I Messages" that, contrary to telling them to stop, makes the request more personal between the two parties.
*Power Seeking- Give the students options (that are still within the framework of the class) for their work to increase the sense of control or give them some extra responsibility that they can manage.
*Avoidance of failure- Modeling task management or employing strategies for multiple learning styles as well as enforcing a classroom accepting of failures and growth from failures

Using these methods will help students feel heard and develop a sense of responsibility in the classroom as they now know (and hopefully will practice) positive behaviors. The classroom comes to feel like a comfortable space with clearly defined expectations for students. While the teacher may begin with modeling these behaviors, the students will propagate these behaviors and expectations to other class members.


-What field or lived scenarios demonstrate your assigned classroom management theory?

Noah: I personally practiced methods for helping students avoiding failure as well as those seeking attention. During a project with multiple parts, some students were left idling as there were limited materials to go around. I was able to guide them towards other solutions such as working on a different part of the project or using a different method to complete the task. Rather than sitting around, we were able to discover alternatives that led them to be more flexible in their execution and be more productive with their time. In another scenario, some students were flicking coins as well as tapping markers on the table. First, I tried proximity. When standing close, they stopped but picked back up again when I left. I decided to use "I Messaging" to communicate how they were disrupting not only me, but the rest of the class and made concentration difficult. The problem ceased after this point.

-What are some tips we could use to carry out the theory?

*Having rules/expectations as well as the consequences for not following them readily available will set an early precedent for types of acceptable behavior and give you something to point to.
*It is important to keep your cool. You are modeling behavior to your students in everything you do, even if you don't realize it.
*Be sure to praise students for doing things right! Even small victories need to be celebrated. Just make sure the praise is both genuine and used at appropriate times.

-What are the challenges with implementation?

*You need to be careful not to misidentify causes of behavior, otherwise the strategies you employ may not actually fix the issue.
*Working with individual students means splitting your attention from the whole class. This means you may be taking time from the rest of class to slowly assess and rectify individual problems.