How to Be a Good Organizer and Manager in Your Classroom
Classroom management plays a vital role in developing an educational environment that further invites and encourages good behavior and learning. It is a skill that teachers must-have for not only organizing and managing the class but also to have a friendly, relaxed manner and the most important to maintain discipline. In my point of view, there are some key elements that teachers must consider to avoid disruptive behavior in the class and to engage students in meaningful learning.
This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Jatinder K. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT.
Lesson Preparation
First of all, planning before the lesson starts is a good way to keep students actively engaged in learning, so that they do not have time to become disruptive. A good plan is very necessary to keep learners busy at all times. Each lesson plan needs to include a clear objective, essential questions, and some suitable activities to make the students active and not to create opportunities for misbehavior.
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Body Language
Secondly, having good eye contact, the use of gestures and the proper voice level also have their roles in classroom management. Eye contact is essential to establish a good rapport with the students. It is used to show the involvement of all students in the lesson, to hold their attention and to check that everybody is participating. Further, good use of gestures is useful to convey the meaning of language, to add visual interest and to lessen the need for a verbal explanation for every point. However, fine clarity, range, and variety of voice are effective to make the instructions understood to all learners in the class. The greater alteration in the teachers’ volume can liven up the class, while a dull voice-only creates boredom and leads to students misbehaving.
Grouping
Apart from this, grouping students has a place in classroom management. As most of the classes are heterogeneous, so a variety of abilities will be found in each classroom today. If students are not grouped properly, it means that they are engaged in work that is very easy for them or too difficult will tend to get them off task and this is one of the key times that misbehavior begins. That’s why students must be grouped according to the need of the task. And a variety of instructional methods such as cooperative learning or experiential learning must be offered to the students. A fair amount of pair and group work should be used to allow sufficient active participation of learners.
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Classroom Setting
Moreover, how teachers organize the position of the students and themselves is of great importance. Students can be moved for the benefit of activity or discipline, but it should be done firmly, politely and from the start of the class. The teacher must have a clear view of all the students and they can see the teacher. Most of the times orderly rows and circular arrangements are effective ways to organize a class, but it depends upon the size of class and type of activity too. Also giving individual attention, keeping a balance between taking time for teachers and students, differentiating instructions and appealing to a variety of learning styles will keep students engaged and out of trouble.
Working With Challenging Behavior
However, maintaining discipline is the most important and critical task for teachers in the classroom. Prevention is not enough for some students. Their unwillingness to engage in academic work or poor attitude about learning will create a problem for others too. So, the final step in managing the classroom is being able to recognize the reason behind the students’ problem behavior and then to act accordingly. A level controlled response is usually the best when responding to disruptive students verbally. A teacher has to act immediately when a problem arises and must focus on the behavior, not the student. Adopting a neutral affect and a neutral voice keeps the behavior from escalating and allows the teacher to stay in control of the class.
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To conclude, classroom management is very necessary to form a smooth learning environment and should be initiated with proper, thorough planning. The main focus should be on giving the students a variety of engaging, cognitively suitable learning activities. When required, students’ motivation needs to be discerned and addressed appropriately.
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