2. Introduction
Main characters in scenario:
 Miss Jia (Teacher)
 John (accused of cheating in test and
smokes)
 Lian Huay (kept looking into the mirror in
class)
 Annie (kiasu and teacher’s favorite student)
 Minah (inquisitive girl who was told not to
ask so much questions)

3. Inquiry Questions
 What was going through Ms Jia’s mind when she
jots down her obviously heavy to-do list?
 Why was Lian Huay obsessed with appearance?
 How will Ms Jia’s reaction to Minah’s questions
affect Minah’s development in future lessons?
 What motivated John to smoke when he is
obviously underage? Why wasn’t John afraid of
breaking the law?

4. Inquiry Questions
 Why was John angry when Ms Jia told him she
caught him cheating?
 Why Ms Jia accused John of cheating in the test
without investigating into the situation further?
 How can Annie be enthusiastic with Ms Jia’s
lesson when the rest of her classmates couldn’t be
more bothered?
 What theories can we consult to help us better
understand the developments of both Ms Jia and
her students?

5. Presentation Outline
Problems and solutions concerning the teacher:
1. Classroom management
2. Motivation
3. Teaching strategies
Problems and solutions concerning the students:
1. Motivation
2. Moral Development

6. Problems in Teacher
2) Classroom Management
A. Lack of control over students
Evidence:
 Miss Jia had to ask for a student’s help to get the
attention of the class.
 Miss Jia allowed students to scold and jeer at
one another across the class.
 Miss Jia was indifferent to the fact that her
student was reading amagazine in class.

7. Solutions
 Miss Jia should develop withitness to reduce
incidences of classroom disruptions. (Withitness
Concept, Kounin)
 Set up Operational definitions for good behaviour.
(Operant Conditioning Theory, Thorndike)
 Miss Jia could practice Applied Behavioural
Analysis (Alberto & Troutman,2006; Gortmaker &
others, 2007) by analysing a problematic behaviour
and thereafter employ the appropriate remedies to
eradicate the problem.

8. Solutions (cont…)
 Miss Jia should establish firm and strict ground rules
in class.
 Miss Jia could employ Contingency Contracting with
John to regulate John’s undesirable behaviour.
 Miss Jia could develop students’ inner sense of self-
control by explaining why their behaviour are
unacceptable instead of scolding them directly.

9. Problems in Teacher
B. Lacks consistency in handling
disciplinary issues
Evidence:
 Miss Jia did not take immediate action
against John when he came into class late
from smoking but scolded Lian Huay
when she looked into the mirror in class

10. Solutions
 Teacher should execute punishments or
rewards timely so that students can
match their behaviour with the
consequences (Umbreit et al., 2007)

11. Problems in Teacher
2) Motivation
A. Lacks motivation and passion in teaching
Evidence:
 She questioned her choice of teaching as
a career.
 She was only concerned on completing
her lesson without checking her students’
understanding.

12. Solutions
 Teacher should cultivate interest in her
job.
 Take time to know her students better so
as to build rapport and increase
students’ sense of belonging and her
attachment to the class. (Maslow’s
Hierarchical Theory)

13. Problems in Teacher
3) Teaching strategies
A. Didactic teaching style
Evidence:
 When Minah asked further questions about a
concept, Miss Jia felt irritated.
 Ms Jia discouraged Minah by insisting that
she just need to follow the “rule” without
trying to understand the rationale behind it.
Hence, she encouraged rote learning and not
meaningful learning.

14. Solutions
 Teacher needs to be mastery-focused in her
teaching.
 Learn to skew lessons towards inquiry
approach to involve more student
participations.
 Foster self-efficacy in students.

15. Problems in Teacher
B. Poor time management skills
Evidence:
 Outwardly lamented about how she is
going to manage her time.
 She was approached by the HOD as she
was the last to key in the CA results.

16. Solutions
 Prioritize and plan her schedule properly
 Do not over-commit herself

17. Problems in Teacher
C. Practice of Favoritism
Evidence:
 Teacher attended to Annie’s questions first
when she stepped into the class without
trying to settle the class down.
 On the other hand, when Minah asked
questions, she discouraged her.

18. Solutions
 Teacher should be fair and offer equal
opportunities to students in learning.
 Teacher should learn to control her own
emotions and should not have any
preconceived notion about the learning ability
of any student.

19. Problems in Students
1) Motivation
A.Students have an external-stable-
uncontrollable causal attribution(Attribution
Theory, Bernard Weiner, 1986)
Evidence:
 Students put all the blame of not performing
well on the teacher
 Students are so used to teacher’s style of
teaching that they can read and predict the
teacher’s response
 Students do not think they can change Miss
Jia’s teaching approaches

20. Solutions
 Plan a series of achievement experiences to
help students(Boekaerts, 2006; Brophy, 2004;
Dweck & Elliot,1983):
i. Concentrate on tasks at hand rather than worrying
about failure
ii. Cope with failures by retracing their steps to discover
their mistakes and discover a better approach
iii.Attribute their failures to lack of effort rather than lack
of ability

21. Solutions (cont…)
 Expose students to models who struggle to
overcome mistakes before succeeding
(Brophy, 2004)
 Develop a growth mindset in students(Carol
Dweck, 2006,2007)
 Make learning approaches negotiable
(Grolnick & others, 2002)

22. Problems in Students
B. Students have low self-efficacy (Self-Efficacy
Concept, Albert Bandura,1997)
Evidence:
 John mentioned outwardly that he knows that
he is not good in Mathematics in class when he
was accused of cheating.
 Miss Jia reinforced students’ low efficacy by
insisting that Minah won’t be able to understand
deeper concepts.

23. Solutions
 Guide students to set goals that are specific, proximal
and challenging (Bandura, 1997)
 Teacher can do a student profiling to be aware of
their prior knowledge and teach in their Zone of
Proximal Development (Vygotsky Theory)
 Attention should be placed on short-term goals after
students have set their long-term goals

24. Problems in Students
C. Low social motive in achieving (Social Motive,
Anderson and Wolters, 2006)
Evidence:
 Students do not like the teacher. Minah
outwardly said she hates Miss Jia
 Very negative peer-group influence (Wigfield
& others, 2006)
i. When John came in late from smoking, Jimmy
glamourised the act by asking the number of sticks
he had.
ii. When Minah asked questions, the class jeered at
her

25. Solutions
 Teacher should spend time to understand and
build a rapport with students
 Teacher should explicitly encourage good
behaviours and show disapproval of
unacceptable behaviours
 Discourage jeering and discrimination among
students
 Encourage collaborative learning and respect
among students

26. Problems in Students
D. Motivated in the wrong aspect
(Erikson’s Lifespan Development
Theory)
Evidence:
 Lian Huay was more engrossed in looking
into the mirror than listening to the lesson
 Lucy more interested in the magazine than
following the lesson

27. Solutions
 Acknowledge each students’ strengths and
weaknesses
 Treat students as unique individuals
 Downplay the attention on physical
appearance
 Give appropriate praises to students to raise
their self-esteem

28. Problems in students
2) Moral Development Issues
A.Lack of Moral Values
Evidence:
 John did not seem to think there is anything
wrong with smoking in school
 Fellow classmate, Jimmy, glorified John’s act of
smoking by fascinating over the number of
cigarette sticks he smoked.

29. Solutions
 Miss Jia could explain the harmful effects of
smoking instead of just asking him not to do
so.

30. Problems in Students
B. Disrespectful behaviour towards the
teacher
Evidence:
 John defied Miss Jia and stomps out of the
class abruptly when accused of cheating.
 Class did not acknowledge teacher’s
presence or bother to greet her when she
walked into the class.
 Lian Huay confronted Miss Jia, by saying,
“What kind of teacher are you?” in front of
the whole class

31. Solutions
 Miss Jia could be a role model by showing
care and respect to her students more often.
 Miss Jia could put in more effort in building
better rapport with students

32. Problems in Students
C. Students display pre-conventional
Morality(Kolberg’s Levels and stages of Moral
Development Theory)
Evidence:
 Lian Huay argued that if John could get away with
everything, she should also not be penalized for looking
into the mirror.
 Students have a “buddy system" for smokers to look out for
one another
 Dua Xia commented aloud that he would help Miss Jia only
because he was in a good mood, showing that his morality
is influenced by emotions.

33. Solutions
 Miss Jia could capture
teachable moments to
instill moral values in
students whenever
possible
 Guide students to
practice empathy and
view things from various
perspectives

34. Conclusion
Relationship is a two-way interaction.
Hence, in most student-teacher conflicts
that happen, both the teacher and the
students are responsible in contributing
to the problem.
Therefore, to reconcile the situation
presented in Scenario 1, our group has
come up with solutions targeted at
changing both the teacher and the
students’ behaviours.

35. Theories used:
 Anderson, E.M., & Wolters, C.A.(2006).
Goals, values, and affect: Influences on
Motivation. In P>A> Alexander & P.H.
Winne(Eds), Handbook of educational
Psychology(2nd Ed). Mahwah,
NJ:Erlbaum
 Bandura, A(1982) Self-efficacy
Mechanism in human agency. American
Psychologist, 37, 122-147

36. Theories (cont…)
 Brophy J(1998) Motivating Students to
learn. New York: McGraw-hill
 Dweck, C.S., & Elliot, E.(1983)
Achievement Motivation. In P. Mussen(Ed),
Handbook of Child Psychology(4th Ed, Vol
4). New York: Willey
 Graham , S., & Weiner, B. (1996). Theories
and principles of motivation. In D.C. Berlina
& R.C. Calfee(Eds), Handbook of
educational psychology. New York:
Macmillan

37. Theories (cont…)
 Kounin, J.S.(1970). Discipline and
management in classrooms. New York:
Holt, Rinehart & Winston
 Maslow, A.H.(1954) Motivation and
personality. New York: Harper & Row
 Weiner B(1986) An attributional theory
of motivation and emotions. New York:
Springer

38. References:
 Eggen, P, & Kauchak, D. (2010). Education Psychology:
Windows on Classroom (8th ed). NJ: Pearson
 Tan, O. S, Parsons, R. D., Hilson, S. L., & Sardo –Brown,
D. (2011). Education Psychology: A practitioner-researcher
approach. An Asian Edition (2nd ed). Singapore: Thomson
 Santrock, J. W. (2009). Educational Psychology (4th ed.)
(Mc Graw-Hill International edition. Boston: McGraw –Hill
 An Overview of Moral Development - derived
from http://tigger.uic.edu/~lnucci/MoralEd/overview.html.
 Moral and Character Development - derived
from http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/morchr/morchr.
html.