The Development of Routines, Rules, and Expectations at the Start of the School Year

Abstract

As teacher effectiveness research progressed during the past 20 years, it became clear that skillful classroom management was a necessary condition for effectiveness (Brophy, 1979(Brophy, , 1983;; Kounin, 1970; Soar & Soar, 1979).Quickly, teaching re~earchers~be~an to include more sophisticated observation instruments that allowed for a more complete analysis of teacher managerial strategies.As classroom management work progressed, it also became clear that managing so as to prevent disruptions and optimize class time for academic work was the pattern most often associated with differential achievement gains (Brophy & Good, 1986; Rosenshine, 1979).The increasingly analytic teaching research that focused on classroom management revealed that the establishment of effective managerial and instructional routines at the very beginning of the school year was highly predictive of differential gains in achievement and attitude across the entire academic year (Brooks, 1985; Evertson & Anderson, 1979).Brophy and Good (1986) reported that junior high school teachers' overall effectiveness for the school year was directly related to what they did on the first day of school.Teachers in whose classrooms the student gains in achievement were differentially higher were those who planned thoroughly for the first several days of classes and implemented clear classroom rules, managerial and instructional routines, and performance expectations (Sanford, Emmer, & Clements, 1983).Once practiced and learned thoroughly, these routines allowed for the smooth operation of the classroom throughout the year without excessive teacher attention to managerial or behavioral problems.They had become, to use Soar and Soar's (1979) phrase, established structures.The manner in which effective teachers establish routines has been well documented at the elementary level (Emmer, Evertson, & Anderson, 1980;