Learning Management Systems
Learning Management and Teacher Training Resources
Having a learning management system can be very helpful for an effectively run classroom.
Applying the educational theories from journals and articles on classroom management research can help build learning management systems. This can help improve the general learning atmosphere in the class and aid the teacher with tools and strategies. This article will focus on practical approaches teachers can use after they have an understanding of an effective learning management system.
Emmer and Evertson, in their well known book Classroom Management for Elementary Teachers, point out in their article Preventive Classroom Management (1982), that the way teachers manage their classes influences other features of the classroom, behavior, or instruction which are the more direct causes of learning. No learning can take place without a supportive environment and a strong sense of expectations for success.
Learning management systems are essentially about building an effective plan so that a teacher can optimize the amount of learning that can take place in a given lesson. Based on research, there are several solutions that can help build an effective program and improve the general learning atmosphere.
Lesson beginnings, have important implications for classroom management. As a five minute activity for example, one could write the goals of the lesson on the board and discuss them. This helps the students get more organized. Similarly, a teacher can start writing on the board what was done in the previous lesson as a way to build up the four R's: remind, review, retrieve and help the students reflect.
Once the goals, class rules, and procedures are discussed, it is time to teach. In order to facilitate effective lessons, a teacher must awaken a need for this learning, in the same way that advertisers sell their products. This ‘awakening’ can be done in unlimited techniques and methods.
As delineated by some of the many case studies in articles and journals, all teachers start their teaching posts constantly struggling for control. At one point however, a teacher should begin by avoiding entering this ineffective pattern of vying for control with the class and start teaching using effective tactics.
It is important to provide students with opportunities to respond actively and allow for less teacher dominated discourse and more student independent thinking where they “identify the goals itself in addition to developing a method for reaching it” (Brophy 70). This is learning management system at its best.
Works Cited
Brophy, Jere. "Classroom Organization and Management" The Elementary School Journal, March 1983. pp.265-271).
Emmer and Evertson "Preventive Classroom Management" in Classroom Management for Elementary Teachers. 7th edition, 2005.
