The style in which a teacher presents lessons may have a negative effect on student behavior. For example, teachers may enjoy lecturing and having students take notes, but this style of teaching may bore students and so they act out or fall asleep. It is important for teachers to learn about the students in their classrooms and find out which ways they learn best in order to present lessons in ways that keep students engaged. Alternatives to lecturing include using hands-on demonstrations, group activities and visual examples to pique student interest and appeal to visual and kinesthetic learners.
Students are very sensitive to punishment and notice if a teacher disciplines one student differently than another for similar actions. Teachers who are not consistent in their discipline or show favoritism may find themselves facing more negative behavior from students. Some students who are consistently shown favoritism like to test the water to see if they will be punished, while those who are regularly punished also test the teacher because they feel it does not matter what they do, they will still get in trouble.
If a teacher has a negative attitude toward a book, another teacher, standardized test or school rule, students will often pick up on and emulate that attitude. At the same time, students are able to tell if a teacher does not particularly care for a certain student and that student will often act out in an attempt to get attention of any kind from the teacher. Teachers must work to mask their own negative emotions to keep from unintentionally eliciting negative behaviors from students.
There are two ways teachers interact with students that often have a negative effect on student behavior. Most students, at every developmental level, want to please adults or those in authority and to feel cared about. With a disinterested teacher, students frequently do not perform the way the teacher desires because they know they will be unable to please that teacher or get the teacher to care about them. On the opposite end of the spectrum, teachers who set out to be a student's best friend often experience negative behavior, because students begin to see the teacher as less of an authority figure. An ideal teacher falls somewhere in the middle of these two extremes.