Effective Classroom Management Training to Promote Better Education: Changes in Pre-service Teacher Strategies after Triad Debriefing

Abstract

Throughout the world, training teachers in effective classroom management strategies is a major societal challenge. It is important for pre-service teachers to receive feedback on specific classroom management strategies from their trainers (supervisor and cooperating teacher), using an observation tool and ideally a video recording of their practice. Yet little is known about the evolution of pre-service teachers' actual classroom management practices during their internships and the feedback they receive from their trainers. This article therefore presents the evolution of the actual practices of pre-service French-speaking Belgian teachers observed on two occasions during their internships (Observation 1 and Observation 2). It also presents the link between the feedback given by the trainers and the intentions to act expressed by the pre-service teacher during the debriefing following the first observation (O1) and the strategies implemented by the pre-service teachers during the second observation (O2). To this end, an observation grid inserted into an observation software was used live in secondary school classrooms, and the debriefings were recorded and then analyzed. By comparing the feedback and intentions to act expressed during the debriefings with the actual strategies of the pre-service teachers, it was possible to identify which feedback and intentions to act were actually implemented by the pre-service teachers, on the basis of observable indicators. The results point to a number of positive developments in pre-service teachers' practices, and indicate certain avenues for improvement. They also show that pre-service teachers followed half the feedback given to them by their trainers. The results provide a basis for formulating ways of training teachers in effective classroom management.