Regaining Class Control
Classroom Management Strategies, Tips and Techniques
What happens when your lesson doesn't succeed? Here are a few classroom management techniques and strategies to help you regain that class control.
As a new teacher, you might find some of your hard prepared lessons do not go as smoothly as planned. Classroom management or loose class control is usually one of the main reasons for why this happens. It is easy for a new teacher to enter a panic mode when thirty or so heads aren't exactly listening to you. So what can you do?
Always consider the classroom seating arrangements
It may just be possible that your classroom seating arrangements need rethinking. Social dynamics is a big cause for rowdy behavior. Look at your seating chart. Disruptive students who have been sitting next to each other may now need to be separated. The minute you neutralize the social dynamics of a classroom seating arrangement, you might find it easier to teach.
Stop the Lesson !
Your lesson plan is not grounded in stone. While trying to cope with a difficult classroom situation that seems like hell, stop and take a few seconds of time out. New teachers often think that stopping the lesson shows a sign of weak classroom management. For some odd reason, they think they should be doing all the talking to gain class control. But often, the opposite is much more effective. Those few seconds are like gold. They can offer you other solutions. You just need to be more open and give it all a chance. Observe the class. What is going on? What needed to be changed? Listen to your teacher intuition. It is often precise and on track. For example, teacher dominated discourse can be changed to more student work and involvement. Too much explanation can be sometimes too preachy, and you can teach something more inductively. In short, other ways of teaching can and should be explored.
Don't Forget Discipline
Good teaching is a mix of classroom management strategies and interesting teaching approaches that motivate students. Again, if you find the class is not attentive for learning new material, stop and wait. One option is to remind and perhaps even reteach classroom rules and procedures. Illustrate what happens when they don't abide to the classroom rules. They should realize that poor behavior will create a wider gap in terms of your classroom teaching and their learning. They should understand that the responsibility rests on their shoulders.
Another option is to stop the class and use body language such as eye contact. Sometimes eye contact is a very effective nonverbal way to regain class control. When you eye that one disruptive student, she or he will come to realize that he or she is the reason why you stopped the lesson. This will give the rest of the class a message of your expectations for a simple classroom procedure. They should be attentive when you are explaining!
Final Words
Deep down inside, kids do want to learn and succeed; they just have a very hard way of showing it. But by using a variety of classroom management techniques and strategies, hopefully you will improve your lessons and gradually know what works and doesn't work for your particular classes.
