Question

Think about the best classroom management K-12 teacher. Explain some things about the tools that teacher used to manage his/her class, disciplines problem students, and interacted with students who behave properly and excelled academically.

Answer 1

Before applying any strategy in a classroom a teacher needs to understand a simple fact that the class consists of students who are individually different from each other. Therefore, one strategy does not fit everybody in the classroom.

Students would mainly differ from each other in the following ways:

1) Intellectual ability and health

2) Ability to maintain interpersonal relationships

3) Physical reasons.

Some of the classroom management techniques that a teacher can adopt are:

1) Teacher needs to recognise the needs of a child and should be flexible in letting the child perform his/her level best.

2) Teacher should encourage all pupils irrespective of his/her performance. This would boost their self esteem and would help them work harder and stay postive.

3) Classroom rules should be stated at the beginning of the class. It should be clear, measurable and observable. Students find it difficult to follow rules which are vague, such as "Don't call out answers if you know". Students would get confused regarding the expected behaviour. Instead, "Raise your hand if you wish to answer" would be a more measurable, observable and positve classroom rule statement.

4) Teachers can make tasks time bound. In this way students would learn the value of time. Failure to adhere to time limits should lead to a negative reinforcement such as asking the student to complete the task during break.

5) If students continue to be a distraction in the class, a time-out for the particular student for a few minutes could be advised. The teacher should however use this as a last resort and not forget to bring the child back to class after a while. This would help the student regain focus and calm himself/herself down.

6)Peer learning could be used to help students enhance team work and cooperation in class.

7) Individual counselling should be given to each child in order to understand them better and help them adjust well to the school.

8) Morning pep-talks regarding good values should be mandatory. It should be crisp and short though.