Classroom Organization Topics
Classroom Seating Arrangements and an Organizational Plan
A good teacher begins with classroom seating arrangements and an effective classroom organization plan.
Effective classroom organization involves a lot more than just reading articles on effective classroom management. It is actually the rigorous side of teaching, which is largely experimenting, implementing your classroom organization plan, and rethinking it through during the course of the school year.
What does the framework of a classroom organization plan consist of? Here are a few general pointers:
1. Your classroom seating arrangements. Who is in control? Are discipline problems eating through your lesson?
2. Time. A classroom organization plan includes timing the lesson beginnings and endings accordingly. Make sure you have back-ups whenever possible.
3. Giving appropriate and clear instructions. Lack of explaining instructions clearly eats away at valuable class time. Model whenever you can and tone your language to suit large mixed ability classes, small groups, weak students, and finally, the age of your students.
You might have had varying degrees of success with your classroom organization plan. However, almost inevitably, beginning teachers have to deal with discipline problems. It's the nature of the teaching world. Therefore, reevaluating your classroom seating arrangements is most likely your best bet for neutralizing social dynamics and also shows you are the boss. As a new teacher, you are the authority and you are in charge.
Classroom Setup for Activities
Other pointers for classroom organization include the actual framework for classroom activities. Usually, if the purpose is to teach or review a new unit or structure, the teacher should be in control. This is typically a frontal type framework. Thinking out your procedure for each activities normally falls under the category for classroom organization as well.
Advanced Organizers
A big part of your lesson plan involves thinking in advance through your level of approach, methods and procedure. Approach and methods are bigger issues of a smaller picture that directly relate to your lesson plan. You do not necessarily need to write these things down, but you do however need to relate to them in your thinking.
Approach can relate to using the communicative approach in teaching English as a Second Language. Method is a loose term often used to describe the methods by which students are expected 'to do'. For example, are you the type of teacher who uses the audiolingual method through consistent and unending drilling when teaching new vocabulary?
Finally, the procedure is the what and how of your lesson plan. It involves your goals, and how you ant to teach these goals. It is the entire framework of the lesson from pre-main-post activities, to timing, to the actual transitions between the activities. You should commit to writing these parts of your lesson plan down. You can also change them later on.
The good news is, that after all this hard work of planning and reimplementing parts of your classroom organization plan, your students will behave in more predictable ways, and your lessons will flow much more smoothly.
Feel free to start a discussion on how you implemented parts of your classroom organization plan. Or just stop by and share a thought on the subject.
