A major fear of many teachers, especially new teachers, is losing control of the class. Behavior issues greatly affect the atmosphere and learning environment. How a teacher conducts classroom management often portrays the teacher’s teaching ability. Therefore, it is very important that teachers, students and parents understand that good behavior is essential to learning.
Some teachers struggle with finding an effective method for tracking and reporting student behavior to parents. There are many different types of discipline logs available that allow teachers and parents the opportunity to communicate about a child’s good or bad conduct. Different methods work better for different teachers and different children. In some cases, finding the best method is trial and error. The key is to keep in mind that options exist. If one method is not working, look for another.
Daily Discipline Logs
One behavior communication method that some teachers choose is tracked on a daily basis. This method is typically only seen in the primary grades. One advantage to charting and communicating student behavior daily is that the action is fresh on the mind of the teacher and the student. The teacher remembers the occurrences if the parents need further discussion. The child remembers the wrong doing which makes discussion or punishment from the parents more effective. The teacher also benefits from daily communication with parents in that the behavior may be corrected the next day.
The disadvantage of completing a daily discipline log is time. The teacher must allot time each day to chart the behavior for each child. Also, the student has no opportunity to correct the behavior later in the week before it is reported to the parents.
Weekly Behavior Logs
Weekly discipline logs are probably the most common type of behavior communicator in primary and intermediate grades. These logs are sent home one day each week, usually on Friday. In some cases, an overall behavior report is given for the entire week. In other cases, the teacher marks each daily as with the daily log but the report only goes on home on Friday. The advantage to this type of log is that the teacher only spends one day each week on its completion. The students also have more of an opportunity to have one poor behavior day without the report being greatly affected with negativity.
The weekly discipline logs may be difficult for teachers with a bad memory or poor noting taking skills. By Friday, a teacher may not recall a student’s bad behavior on Monday and Tuesday. If the student gets a good behavior report, he or she may be under the impression that a couple of days of wrongdoing are acceptable. It can also be hard for teachers to pinpoint specific undesired actions to share with parents when they question the report.
Send Home Notes
Middle school teachers most often use send home notes to report behavior to parents. With this method, there is no day or time period pattern to the contact. The contact only occurs when a problem exist. If the child misbehaves, the teacher sends a note home to the parent. The method is often preferred by the teacher due to the lack of having to complete a log for each student.
The downside of send home notes is that only bad behaviors are recognized. In the other two methods, every child received a report regardless of good or bad behavior. Because send home notes are not consistent and expected by parents, the students are also given more leniencies on hiding them from their parents.
While several methods exist for reporting and communicating behavior to parents, the key is simply to use one. Although each method has good and bad points, using no method has no advantages for the teacher, the student, or the parents.
Teacher Ease and Teacher Tools both offer tools for creating student behavior forms and logs.
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