Role Plays or Scenarios for
General Classroom Situations
Situation 1:
Situation: Ms. Manage Everything had an emergency and had a substitute for several days. Before returning to school Ms. Manage Everything called the substitute to check on what was what. The substitute began on a tirade on how terrible the class was and that they were probably the worst class he had ever taught. He described how uncooperative the class was and how several students refused to do what was assigned. After working through all the problems on the first day, still two students from the class continued to be uncooperative the next day. As a result they stayed after school (high school) or stayed in for recess (middle school). The next day the two were still uncooperative and they were sent to the principal who was talking about putting them into in-school suspension when he left school. Ms. Manage Everything says okay I get the picture, apologizes for the students’ behavior, and promises to call him when the matter has been appropriately resolved. When she returns to school and talks to the principal she finds that the information she was provided by the substitute over the phone was accurate except that the principal didn't issue the in-school suspension, as she decided to wait until tomorrow, when you returned, and confer with you about the whole situation.
Situation 2:
Situation: Mr. Gotto Coverit has been trying to get through several of the objectives which are part of the school district’s curriculum. He has repeatedly told students that the material will be on the test and has wondered if they really understand the seriousness of what he has been trying to tell them for three days. When he gave the test his thoughts were confirmed. When he talked to them as a group, they claimed they knew it and they have been paying attention in class. They claimed that the test was unfair because it was confusing and they did not understand for sure what he wanted.
Situation 3:
Situation: The principal Ms. Law An Order has instituted a discipline modeled after the Canter's Assertive Discipline. The faculty was asked to create a list of classroom rules, consequences and rewards. The consequences included five steps: warning, check-mark, loss of 10 minutes recess, write a behavior plan and have it signed by the teacher and the student's parents, and principal intervenes with an in-school suspension. At a faculty meeting she asked her faculty to report how things are going. Mr. Make Em Responsible reports that by the end of the day there have been about 10-20 warnings given and 2-3 time-outs from class, and one time-out from recess. He is getting tired of spending too much time catching students misbehaving, doing clerical work, and enforcing the rules. Ms. Hard Nose reports that she has had some rather heated conversations with parents about student behavior. Ms Fair For All reported that students complained that she didn't give some students a fourth check mark all the time. She feels that some students need more leeway because it is so hard for them to control themselves all day long and the other children need to understand that life isn't always black and white.
Situation 4:
Situation: Mr. Gnu empathizes with students about how difficult it is to be quiet for long periods of time. He remembers his desire to share information with others about the lesson, after-school activities, and gossip. He believes that if students are not given an opportunity to do so they will be consumed with the ideas and unable to pay attention. Therefore, he allows students to talk whenever there is a break in the action (assignments and materials being passed or collected and transition times). This worked fine at the beginning, however lately it is harder to bring the students back together, to have them focus on their work, and to have meaningful on task discussions without students getting off task.
Situation 5:
Situation: Ms. Wanto Helplearn begins each class by asking students what they know about a topic, reviewing past learnings, explaining what students are to do, making an assignment, asking students what questions they have, and letting the students work. The same students volunteer ideas while others are not very attentive and do not volunteer answers. When she has completed her instruction and students are working on an assignment she roams the room and helps students with individual problems. As she helps she is constantly checking to see if students are on task and if not dealing with them before helping others. She also is able to check on students who may have trouble, based on her understanding of the student’s needs and assessment data. Lately there seems to be more students who seek help, some who finish very quickly, and a general decrease in the quality of about half of the students' work. The early finishers talk, pass notes, walk around the class and visit. Occasionally a student will engage in a silly behavior behind Ms. Wanto Helplearn’s back and make the rest of the class giggle.
Situation 6:
Situation: Mr. Must Doit believes students must be active if they are to learn, generalize, and be able to solve real life problems. He also believes students learn by communicating their ideas and that what they need to learn is not always in a textbook. At the beginning of the year things seemed to go pretty good. Lately the productivity of the students seems to have decreased. Students take longer to decide what they are going to do, who is going to do what, and argue about it. When they see that the alloted time is about to expire, they make hasty decisions and complete the task quickly, which reduces the quality of work. He was going to talk about this to the students yesterday when a similar situation arose. However, he did not. The class’s behavior was incredible. The students' achievement was quality, the atmosphere was relaxed, the noise level was appropriate, and students were cooperative, congenial, and very satisfied with their products. The day ended very well. Mr. Must Doit is wondering what he should do. He hopes things will continue as yesterday, but he isn’t sure it will since it has not in the past.
Situation 7:
Situation: Ms. Social Skills believes that students need to learn how to socialize and how to participate in the various classroom activities. She has established procedures for almost every activity in the classroom and she is teaching them to the students. Whenever a new activity is introduced she begins with a discussion on the procedures to follow, then has students model the procedure, and then practice it in pairs. The school principal has visited Ms. Social Skills’s classroom and has just suggested that she has used too much time for non-teaching activities. Just as the principal was finishing an emergency call came for him over the intercom. As he walked out the door he said, "think about it and we'll talk tomorrow morning at 7:45".
Situation 8:
Situation: Mr. Choice believes that students choose their behavior. They can either choose to cooperate or not. They can choose to do their work or choose not to. He repeatedly tells students it is their choice before he assigns almost everything. If students do not choose to do what he says, then he keeps them in for recess with the comment: "You chose to stay in." Since he believes in giving students choices he also conducts class meetings and tries to get students to participate in class decisions. It was the students’ idea to keep a student in for recess if the student did not complete their work. During a recent class meeting several students talk about the idea that he always says they have a choice, but they feel the choices are really not choices. He said that since the discussion started toward the end of the alloted time for the meeting they would have to continue with the discussion at the next meeting.
Situation 9:
Situation: Ms. Goal Setter believes students need to be empowered by making choices and setting goals. She has had very good experiences with most of the students. However, there are a few that are really hard to reach. She has days where they set goals and achieve them and days when they do nothing, just a little bit, or just enough to get by. Her usual procedure is to have students decide on a task, how to do it, and supporting them while they work (plan, do, review or state of the classroom). When they are done she usually gives them feedback, feed forward, and praise for their accomplishments.
Situation 10:
Situation: Ms Controversy believes that an educated person makes decisions based on information and that students need to be exposed to all kinds of ideas so that they can make educated personal decisions. She has had students read about abortion, cloning, drugs, homosexuality, LBGT community, First Amendment rights, and censorship at various times in their current readers. She has supported a school program on sex education for sixth graders. Parents want to censor certain topics by not allowing certain books and magazines in the library and not allowing certain topics to be discussed in school. The principal has come to her and says that if she wants to continue with her ideas she has to outline a plan on how to deal with controversial topics in school. And furthermore if she wants the present sex education program changed, then she should present a curriculum design for him to consider and possibly present to the school board.
Situation 11:
You are in the faculty lounge discussing the general behavior of your students. You are concerned that they are not able to solve problems. You have students that can't agree and argue until you intervene and help them solve the problem. Other students get into arguments about who is going to be on whose team at recess and the results spill into the classroom after recess and affect the whole afternoon. Another teacher complains about the amount of tattling on what he believes is the least little thing. Some of the other teachers in the lounge say that they have the same problems. You ask what they do and they tell you that in class they just tell the students what they want them to do they don't give them choices that will cause problems. You ask about recess and they say that if students try to bring recess problems into the classroom they tell them that they don't want to hear about it and to leave their problems on the playground. You say that you think there ought to be a way to help students make better decisions and another teacher says she agrees. The two of you decide to get together and see what you can find.
Situation 12:
You are sitting at your desk looking at the faculty meeting agenda and notice an agenda item, increased parent/community involvement and your name listed with two other faculty members. Wow, you can't hardly wait to find out what you are in for now. When you return from the faculty meeting you and two other members have been assigned to a committee to research, develop, and present a variety of option to use parents and community members more as resources for education, both in and out of the classroom.
Situation 13:
You wonder if you have been very lucky to have such a great group of students or, as the principal says, you are doing a fantastic job of teaching. You have been able to facilitate the students learning in such a way as to create a community of learners. The students and parents of the students report that the students love coming to school to learn. You have done your best in trying to motivate them to learn, care for themselves and others, and to develop strong values. The principal is convinced that other teachers could benefit if you would explain how you created the positive attitudes that students share in your classroom.
Situation 14:
You have had several students move into your classroom and leave during the year when you student taught. You know that there will be times this year when students will move in and out of your class too. You also know that at the beginning of the year students will be new to you and other students. You think you can develop a plan to help students adjust at the beginning of the year and also to have students relate what they learn at the beginning of the year to students who moving in and out later in the year. Also you wonder about helping students who have anxieties about leaving their friends and what lies ahead. You decide to develop a plan.
Situation 15:
You have a student in your class that is very shy. The student will not speak up in class and most times when you call on the student the student will not answer. You have had shy students before. However, none have ever been so shy. You want to find strategies to help the student to be more outspoken. High anxiety, with draw from social situations, nervousness, test anxiety, ...
Situation 16
You have growing concern that most students have a set group in which they participate. When they arrive at school they either arrive together or quickly seek out the same students with whom they hang out. At recess, lunch, sporting events, and other school activities. The interactions between different group members is more often ignoring each other, but at times they make what they believe are funny remarks that can be taken as derogatory or hurtful. While there have been only a handful of situations that resulted in pushing or shoving it could be suggested that group tensions partly contributed to these altercations.