Ecological Approaches1
Walter Doyle
University of Arizona
An ecological approach to classroom management focuses on action vectors or, more
specifically, programs of action (e.g., recitations, seatwork, cooperative learning small groups,
transitions) that are mutually constructed and sustained by teachers and students in a classroom
setting. These programs of action activate both engagement and cognition. They are what
teachers manage and, when necessary, intervene to sustain activity flow and avoid the
development of alternate, unwanted action vectors.
Ecological thinking in classroom management grew primarily out of ecological
psychology as that framework was refined and focused on classrooms by Jacob Kounin and Paul
Gump. A fundamental premise of the ecological thinking is that environments create
affordances and demands for individual actions. From this perspective, classrooms are habitats
that surround individuals and that define opportunities and constraints for their actions within
these settings.
Skilled managers understand the ways classroom habitats work, establish routines for
accomplishing purposes, monitor the flow of activity during lesson enactments, interpret actions
within this ecological frame, and act in ways that create and sustain direction, momentum, and
rhythm.
The Nature of Classrooms
A classroom is a collection of 20-30 children assigned to an adult in a particular space for
several months to enact a curriculum. Once created, a classroom takes on several distinct
features. It becomes a place where many different tasks and events occur, (Classrooms are
1
To appear in G. Scarlett (Ed.), Classroom management: An A-Z guide. New York: Sage, 2014.
multidimensional) and at the same time (Classroom tasks and events happen simultaneously),
and quickly (Classrooms tasks and events occur at a rapid pace), sometimes unexpectedly
(Classroom tasks and events often play out in unpredictable ways), and typically in front of
everyone in the room (Classroom tasks and events occur openly, in public). In addition, from the
first moments, a classroom and its activities elicit a shared local narrative or history that
encapsulates how things get done and that shapes how tasks and events play out in the future. All
of these features defining the nature of classrooms also define the texture and nature of teachers’
experience. Some events and programs of action can increase the intensity of a feature (e.g., the
use of small groups often increases the unpredictability of how tasks and events play out), but all
of these features are present to some degree, all the time.
Furthermore, as events and programs of action unfold, these classroom features usually
remain in the background. Therefore, when we watch teachers and students going about their work, what we see is not solely a product of individual dispositions or intentions but also the product of an accommodation to the demands of classroom features making for a very complex setting. These features defining the nature of classrooms provide a milieu for the structures and
processes that are jointly fashioned over time by the common actions of the teacher and students.
Classroom life is experienced in segments—bell work, explanations, discussions, seatwork,
groups working together, etc.—each of which is a distinct habitat defined by a location, an
arrangement of participants, props, focal content, rules and procedures, and the like. Different
segments place different demands both mentally and physically on a teacher—compare a
presentation to a discussion, for example—and thus require different types of monitoring and
intervention skills.
Programs of Action A central component of the classroom habitat is a program of action, which refers to the
shape and direction (i.e., the trajectory) of action in situations. The action structure, or program of
action, refers to the implicit script that defines appropriate action sequences in a particular segment
and serves as a vector to pull participants along the flow of the event.
When you enter a restaurant or attend a concert, for example, there are expected patterns
of action that move you from the entrance to your seat. In a crowded cafeteria there are scripts
for sitting—you can take seat at an open table but not usually an open seat at an already occupied
table.
Programs of action, which are embedded in the activities a teacher enacts, define the very
nature of order, by providing slots and sequences for students' actions and by creating direction,
momentum, and energy for lessons, as well as by pulling students along and through the teacher
managed event or activity. For example, a teacher might announce, “bell work,” and initiate a
complex vector of student actions involving taking out notebooks and pens, attending to words or
sentences written on a whiteboard, writing sentences, etc. In this sense, programs of action provide
signals (information) to participants for both immediate action requirements and the sequence of
actions that propels students to complete an event in an orderly way.
Classroom activities differ in terms of the complexity and clarity of the programs of actions
embedded in them. Whole group activities with a single, consistent source of information (e.g.,
teacher presentations) have a simple action program for participants. In contrast, small group
activities, especially those in which students share materials and supplies, have a more diffuse and
intertwined program of action with many junctures for action to divert along different paths in
different sectors of the room. The more complex the program of action on the floor the more
unpredictable the activity trajectory and thus the more challenging it is for a teacher to sustain a
working classroom system.
In many respects, classroom management is about managing these local programs of action
that define order and hold it in place. By establishing and maintaining these programs of action,
teachers shift the burden of order from themselves to the action vectors of the classroom. As these
vectors become familiar and routinized in a classroom, their holding power increases to provide a
foundation for order. A teacher can then work for longer periods of time with individuals or small
groups of students and introduce variations in activity structures to achieve a multiplicity of purposes.
Academic Tasks and Programs of Action
The academic tasks students are asked to accomplish are a less visible but still fundamental
aspect of programs of action. Academic tasks consist of specifications for the products students are
required to generate, the conditions under which they are to be produced, and the value they have in
the accountability system of a class. Students can be asked to (1) search and match, i.e., find
information in texts to answer questions; (2) verify their recognition of or reproduce information
they have already seen; (3) apply reliable formula (e.g., addition or subtraction algorithms) to
produce answers; or (4) invent solutions to novel (for them) problems. Academic tasks vary in
cognitive demand, depending, for example, on whether students are required to remember the
definition of a metaphor, identify a metaphor in a poem, or write an original and effective metaphor.
Importantly, different types of academic tasks have different consequences for the flow of
classroom events.
Academic work intersects with the action system of a classroom around the dimensions of
ambiguity and risk. Ambiguity in this context refers not to the quality of a teacher’s explanations
but to the product specifications for work samples that are generated by students. Learning a list of
vocabulary words is low in ambiguity—students know in advance what information they will have
to produce on the quiz.
To construct a novel solution to a problem or compose an original analysis or story, students
must go beyond the information given. In these cases, the teacher can specify what features a novel
solution or a good description might have but must leave the actual product unspecified to leave
room for student invention. A teacher might say, for example, “Good descriptions are vivid and
compelling, and here are some examples of vivid and compelling descriptions, so now write a vivid
and compelling description of your best friend.”
Risk and Programs of Action
Risk connects work to the accountability system of a class—the exchange of performance
for grades—and also refers to how likely it is that students will be able to produce an acceptable
product. Knowing five vocabulary words for the quiz on Friday is low, not only in ambiguity (“I
know what words I have to study”) but also in risk (“I can probably learn them with a little
investment of time”). In contrast, inventing a vivid and compelling description is higher in
ambiguity (“I have never seen my vivid and compelling description before”)—and, if students are
actually held accountable, higher in risk because in a students previous writing, description may not
actually be vivid and compelling.
Novel academic tasks—work in which students are to generate products through their own
understanding and invention—often slip away in classrooms because the action systems are more
open and bumpy, and students push back against risk and ambiguity. What is introduced as an
authentic problem-solving task can easily become ritualized and formulaic as teachers navigate to
sustain classroom action trajectories.
Managing Classroom Events
From an ecological perspective, then, a teacher’s central task is to establish and sustain
working classroom events in the sense that there is consistent student cooperation in programs of
action appropriate for engaging with particular curriculum tasks.
How does this get done? There are two major dimensions to answering this question.
First, there is a design element: teachers must visualize activity segments from the perspective
of how the embedded action vectors might hold order in place. As teachers gain experience in
classrooms, they are able to draw upon a larger store of potential scripts for capturing
engagement and for anticipating what might happen and what can be done to sustain the action
flow. Second, they must enact these activities by monitoring and supporting them as they play
themselves out in real time.
Kounin’s work has been particularly influential in helping conceptualize how teachers
can establish and maintain activities. After a series of inconclusive studies on the “ripple
effects” of various kinds of desists (actions teachers take to stop inappropriate behaviour that has
already begun), Kounin tried to identify what “better” teachers do to generate high work
involvement from students. He concluded that these teachers were high on the dimensions of (a)
withitness—they knew what was going on in the classroom and communicated this awareness to
students; (b) overlap—they successfully divided their attention across different tracks of action
during an events (e.g., noticing raised hands while working with an individual student); (c) group
focus—they always remembered that they needed to monitor and wherever possible, involve
everyone during classroom events; and (d) momentum—they kept the pace and flow moving
along.
At one level, these dimensions that help explain good teaching and good classroom
management, describe what a teacher does before inappropriate behavior takes place. In
addition, they help paint a picture of a teacher monitoring and sustaining a moving system, i.e.,
the core action vector or program of action. In other words, successful classroom managers see
classrooms in terms of their programs of action. They watch individual student actions in terms
of their potential impact on a core vector. In other words, for successful managers, activity
structures provide the frame for identifying and interpreting classroom action, and teacher
attention is oriented toward incidents that potentially divert students from the core vector or
create an alternative vector that competes with the intended flow.
Interventions
As dynamic events in real time, classroom action systems do not always flow smoothly
and, on such occasions, teachers need to actively intervene. The challenge is to understand when
to intervene and how to intervene effectively.
From an ecological perspective, interventions are occasioned by student’s actions that,
when left unattended, are likely to create an alternate vector that competes with the main
program of action. In other words, the consequences of a student’s action rather than the act
itself determine whether a teacher needs to intervene. If no one in the room is paying attention to
what a student is doing, then it is not an alternative vector and doesn’t require an intervention. If
an action requires an intervention, a teacher needs to intervene (a) early before the action
escalates and the effect spreads and (b) unobtrusively to avoid increasing visibility such that the
intervention itself becomes an alternate vector.
This perspective implies that skilful managers know what is going on in the room
(withitness) and thus are able to see potential vectors early so that they can react quickly in
discreet ways—walking toward the student, making eye contact, signalling, speaking briefly,
etc.—while continuing the flow of the lesson.
This is why classroom management often seems invisible in a well-managed classroom.
Teachers who are not aware of what’s happening in the room or who do not know how to
interpret what is going on, often react too late and are forced into quite public and disruptive
conflicts with students. In such circumstances, the main program of action is vulnerable.
When faced with disruptive classes, beginning teachers often seek to import a solution
from the outside—new rules to cover perceived problems or a new and better system of
consequences to stop inappropriate behavior. An ecological perspective directs attention
internally to an analysis of the activity and task systems already in place. Perhaps a transition
from seatwork to group work, a transition that can be inherently bumpy, needs to be streamlined
or monitored more closely. Perhaps a task that requires imagination or invention, which can
often be resisted by students, needs different scaffolding. Perhaps opening class after recess or
lunch with a familiar activity and familiar work will help settle students into routines. Teachers
need to examine how the structures of order can be used as an ally in solving classroom issues of
order.
Learning to Manage Classrooms
Classroom ecologies differ across buildings, grade levels, student populations, lessons,
times of the year, and the like. But the essential features outlined above are present everywhere
and always. So, learning to see and understand the activity and tasks systems in classrooms and
the rhythm and flow of classroom life is basic to becoming a successful and effective teacher.
The particular challenge in this learning has to do with the fact that ecological
understanding comes primarily from repeated experience as a classroom teacher. Adopting an
ecological lens can certainly speed up the learning process, by directing attention to the features
defining classroom habitats and by framing efforts to make sense of experiences. However,
there is no substitute for continually engaging with everyday workplace demands to develop
understanding and reasoning skills needed to manage classrooms.
Unfortunately many of the features and dimensions highlighted in an ecological approach
to classroom management are invisible to students, so preservice and beginning teachers’ many
years of being students watching teachers are not especially helpful to their developing skill at
classroom management. Moreover, popular notions of classroom management typically focus
on rules, strictness, and reprimands, which can misdirect beginning teachers away from the
essential ingredients of classroom order. So, becoming a successful classroom manager often
requires a recalibration of what one sees in classrooms and a reconstruction of how one
understands the management process.
Walter Doyle
See also: Curriculum and Classroom Management; Kounin, Jacob; Managing Classroom
Discussions; Managing Groupwork ;, Transitions, Managing
Further Readings:
Doyle, W. (2006). Ecological approaches to classroom management. In C. Evertson &
Weinstein (Eds.), Handbook of classroom management: Research, practice
and
Contemporary issues (pp. 97-125). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Doyle, W. (1983). Academic work. Review of Educational Research, 53, 159-199.
Gump, P. V. (1982). School settings and their keeping. In D. L. Duke (Ed.), Helping
teachers manage classrooms (pp. 98-114). Alexandria, VA: Association for
Supervision and Curriculum Development.
C.
Kounin, J. S. (1970). Discipline and group management in classrooms. New York: Holt,
Rinehart & Winston.
Kounin, J. S, & Gump, P. V. (1974). Signal systems of lesson settings and the task related
behavior of preschool children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 66, 554-562.