Successful classroom management involves not only responding effectively when problems occur, but preventing the frequent occurrence of problems. The most effective decisions in classroom management are based on a clear concept of the goals and intended outcomes that a teacher wishes to accomplish.

Are You Ready…?

Check

• If You are ‘on time’
• If you are properly dressed
• Your teaching materials

Is the class ready…?

Check

• If the students are all in.
• If the class is neat and proper
• If student are wearing uniforms properly
• If they are carrying the materials and books required for your ILP

Organize Your Class

Rules and procedures should be developed in conjunction with teaching strategies that help students meet their personal and academic needs.

• Arrange seating so that you can see and easily move close to students.
• Engage students and give clear instructions for the way the class would be conducted; eg. Whether they can interrupt you anytime during or should wait for you to finish your part.
• Insist that they put their hands up if they wish to either ask or answer a question and not interrupt you or any other students, before specifically called upon by you to do so.
• Encourage students to take responsibility for their learning and do not do tasks that can be done by students.
• Establish routines for collecting homework, distributing papers, etc.
• Move around the room and attend to individual needs.
• Provide simple step-by-step directions.
• Remind students of key procedures associated with the upcoming lesson.
• Use group competition to stimulate more orderly transitions.

Communication

Effective communication is the foundation for good classroom management. Communication skills can be divided into two categories: sending and receiving.

Sending Skills:

• Speak courteously. This creates positive role models for students.
• Take responsibility for statements and instructions. Do not say that you are requiring them to behave in a particular manner because your superiors want it done that way. You want it that way… and not any one else.
• Make statements rather than asking questions. When dealing with students' behaviors, questions often create defensiveness.

Receiving Skills:

• Listen carefully and without prejudices or fixations. This makes the speaker feel that he or she has been clearly heard and that the feelings expressed are acceptable.
• Active listening makes the speaker feel heard. This allows the listener to become involved in the dialogue.
• Make eye contact and be aware of nonverbal messages.
• Demonstrate strong leadership by using body language, facial expressions, and gestures.
• Do not be miserly with appreciation. Appreciate not the PERSON, but the ACT that deserves acknowledgement.

Monitoring

Students may misbehave when they are not involved in the learning activity, do not understand the task, or cannot obtain assistance when it is needed. Following are useful techniques for responding to minor classroom disruptions:

• Introduce students to the rules and procedures that you wish followed during your ILP and the consequence for violations.
• Scan the class frequently in order to notice and respond to potential problems. Do not get engaged with a small or a especially responsive group. Involve those more that are not responsive.
• React calmly and quickly to a student's disruptive behavior in order to create a positive ripple effect.
• Make positive initial contact with students by praising the positive behavior that competes with the negative behavior.
• Remind students of the classroom rule or procedure that they are not demonstrating.
• Give students clear cues indicating that continuation of a behavior will evoke the specified consequences.
• Employ consistent consequences for misbehaviors.
• Inform students that they are choosing the consequence of their behavior.
• Use consequences which are educational in nature.
• When one or two students are being very disruptive, focus other students in the class on their task. Then find a time to talk quietly with the disruptive students.

Delivery of Instruction

Quality of instruction is a key factor influencing students' behavior and achievement. Response to student misbehavior is most effective when it maintains or enhances the student's dignity and self-esteem and encourages the student to be responsible for his or her own behavior.

• Involve students in evaluating their own work as well as your instruction.
• Hand out an outline, definitions, or study guide to help students organize their thoughts and focus their attention.
• Ask the question and give ample wait time before calling on the student.
• Vary style as well as the content of instruction in order to address diverse student learning styles.
• Provide work of appropriate difficulty to complement varying ability levels.
• Relate materials to students' lives whenever possible.
• Be animated, create anticipation, and use activities to catch student interest or increase student motivation to participate.
• Engage student learning through cooperative group work, competitive teams, group discussions, debates, and role playing.