Changes of Students’ Concepts on Classroom Management through Attending a Lecture Which Facilitates Clarification on Their Concepts.

In this paper, we reported how graduate students changed their concepts on classroom management between before and after taking a lecture “Practical Methodology of Classroom Management”, which was one of lectures for students of the Special Teacher Training Course, Graduate School of Education（Professional Degree Course）, Naruto University of Education. The course is for students who just graduated to develop their teaching competency. Eight students were participated in the lecture. The lecture was held on the first semester of the graduate school, which had 1 orientation and 7 lessons. In the first and second lessons, students filled in pre−questionnaire which asked students about their ideal classroom management and the ways to embody their ideal concepts, and discussed the issues. In the 6th and 7th lessons, the students again filled in the same questionnaire（post−questionnaire）and discussed the issues. In 3rd, 4th, and 5th lessons cases of classroom management were introduced and explained intentions of the teachers who practiced the cases. To examine effects of the lecture, results were compared between pre− and post−questionnaires. Their answers on an ideal classroom management were classified into five categories : ＜safety＞, ＜act to themselves＞, ＜self−esteem＞, ＜connect to environment＞, ＜etc.＞. And their answers on the ways to embody their ideal concepts were classified into six categories :［support children to have a sense of safety］,［develop children’s ability to communicate］,［develop children’s basic life customs and rules］,［support children to have self−esteem］,［collaboration among teachers］,［collaboration with parents, guardians, and local community］. On the results of an ideal classroom management, numbers of answers classified into each category did not change. On the other hand, the contents of answers became more sophisticated and clarified. For example, an answer of a student about ＜act to themselves＞ changed from “each pupil participates in classroom activity and class” for pre into “each pupil is a main actor/actress” for post. On the results of the answers on the ways to embody their ideal concepts, numbers of answers classified into［support children to have a sense of safety］was most, and numbers of answers classified into ［develop children’s ability to communicate］and into［develop children’s basic life customs and rules］followed. Almost of all answers were in these 3 categories. Students would consider these 3 categories as a way for ＜safety＞. In fact, ＜safety＞ is the most important factor of classroom management. In the next year’s lecture, we’ll start to facilitate students to consider deeply what ＜safety＞ is for pupils and students in this lecture in the next year. We’ll also try to facilitate them to consider concrete means to guarantee ＜safety＞. And we’ll give them advice that［collaboration among teachers］and［collaboration with parents, guardians, and local community］are important factor to guarantee ＜safety＞.departmental bulletin pape