| Classroom Management Discipline: Discipline means setting the behavioral parameters for the classroom, both by the teacher alone and in response to teacher-student interaction and situational factors. Good classroom management techniques can prevent teachers from having to use discipline, which is the reactive behavior that occurs when a student does something wrong. Therefore, classroom management is the proactive action of the teacher. There are six key elements that affect classroom management. Those include planning, establishing usable rules, getting off to a good start, monitoring the classroom environment, keeping records efficiently, and creating strategies for managing interruptions. Thus, being proactive reduces the need to be reactive. To be proactive, teachers should follow the six key elements of effective classroom management. The first of which is planning. Well-prepared teachers keep lessons moving at a brisk pace but do not ignore those that are having difficulties with the new concepts. Effective teachers also have to make rules that are not related to discipline. These rules should cover routines for distributing materials, progressing to new activities, starting and ending class, obtaining permission to use the bathroom, and accomplishing such tasks as sharpening pencils and throwing away trash. Another important aspect to effective classroom management is that of discussing procedures with their students at the beginning of the school year or semester. This allows students the opportunity to practice them and ensure understanding of those rules. Monitoring the classroom environment is also an effective classroom management technique. This monitoring can be done in many different ways. For a reform style learning environment, teachers should arrange the desks in the room so that students can sit in groups. This allows for students to work together and share their ideas with each other a little easier. Teachers also want to makes sure that they can see all the students at all times. This means that the teacher might want to place their desk in the back of the classroom. This also helps to control the traffic flow problems that occur in a classroom setting. With this type of arrangement, students do not see the teacher as a direct authority figure. Therefore, students take an active part (student-centered) in the learning process. That active participation can also be evident when setting rules for the classroom. Let the students take part in the creation of classroom rules and routines. Another important aspect of monitoring the classroom environment is the questioning strategies that teachers use. That is discussed in another section, Questioning. Record management is another extremely important aspect of maintaining a fair and equitable grading system. By making your record keeping system legal, fair, and consistent: students can worry about the quality of their work instead of how it is graded. Lastly, the ability to manage most interruptions is fully within the teacher’s control and can create effective classroom management. This allows students to stay on task no matter what the teacher is doing. Students understand that they have a job to do and they should be exploring and sharing their ideas with others in their groups. Since the classroom is setup for groups, students gain respect for each other and usually work effectively together. If that is not the case, then the teacher must make an adjustment and group students differently. By getting the students actively involved in the creation of the classroom rules and procedures, they will be more likely to follow those rules and the teacher should have no “discipline” problems. Lesson Planning: Planning is the process of choosing instructional goals, content, materials, and activities that will be used to deliver concepts and ideas to students. Without effective planning, students are less likely to achieve classroom goals. Planning occurs at many different levels and uses many different resources. Teachers want to be sure to plan lessons so that they gain students interests and keeps the students involved. The first resource to be looked at in the planning process is that of curriculum guides. The state or local school district creates these guides. They are statements that detail what should be taught in each grade and content area. These curriculum guides also provide a framework for organizing instruction. Michigan’s curriculum framework supports the NCTM standards and calls for a reform style learning process of mathematics. see Michigan Curriculum Frameworks on the Web. The next step is to implement a reform style textbook, which allows students to connect math with the real world. There are a lot of reform (integrated) style texts out there and one could analyze these texts on their own to decide what works best for their classroom. Some examples of the reform style texts can be viewed at www.edc.org/mcc/curricula.htm. To see what to look for in these reform style textbooks, see Textbooks. Other resources can also be used to develop lesson plans and create student interest. Most colleagues are willing to share their ideas. Plus there are many websites that have lesson plans, which can be useful. List of useful Websites for Lesson Planning: http://www.thinkquest.org/ http://www.education-world.com/ http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/ http://teachers.net/ http://teachervision.com/index.html http://www.lessonplanspage.com http://education.indiana.edu/cas/ttforum/lesson.html Retail stores, the Internet, local libraries, and government agencies also allow teachers a resource when planning for a lesson. As stated before, teachers share ideas and they can also get community members involved in the teaching process when planning a lesson. The latter resources can help to connect the subject area to real world applications. Please see the examples of the lesson plans that we have created for mathematics, see Lesson plans |