BLOG

All you need to know about Classroom Management Strategies and Techniques

All you need to know about Classroom Management Strategies and Techniques

Teaching can both be a rewarding and challenging profession. It is rewarding in the sense that you have the ability to make or bring significant positive changes into your learners' lives. There is a satisfaction that comes with seeing your learner making a breakthrough and understanding those concepts or ideas they have struggled to get.

At the same time, it can be a challenging task, especially if you have to deal with irresponsible, disobedient, or problematic students. Students who pay no attention avoid taking or doing assignments and are always late in class. The worst is having cheating students and those who disregard deadlines. Such behaviors can take your focus away and leave you frustrated.

The good news is, there’s always a way through which you can manage your classroom and ensure you prevent irresponsible students' behavior and maintain a focused classroom. Or and develop consistency around your dream class expectation. This you can only achieve through; deploying the best classroom management strategies- all that has been covered in this article. Read along!

What are classroom management strategies?

Every teacher has in mind the kind of students and class they would wish to create and guide through. In fact, most teachers would want to have a motivated type ready to learn, ask questions, collaborate, and be respectful.

However, suppose some of these qualities are not met. In that case, teachers may be forced to create or install some rules and regulations that every student or learner must abide by or be punished for breaking them.

Therefore, classroom management strategies are rules or guidelines outlined by either a teacher or the learning institution administration to ensure that every aspect of learning runs smoothly.

Here are some of the components of classroom management strategies that you must keep in mind:

• Classroom design- you must ensure your students learning materials are adequately arranged or placed well to suit a focused learning environment.
• Instructional techniques- you have to switch and deploy different learning styles for different classes. For example, exploit video gaming and other forms of delivery in your teaching.
• Develop classroom rules- you must have firm rules that guide your class. At the same time, ensure you develop regulations that are in the best interests of your students.
• Classroom organization- you must keep your classroom and lessons organized, well managed

Here are some of the classroom management techniques or strategies you need to know

a)Set effective limits or guidelines and stick to them

Every instructor has the expectations of the class they want. So, by setting some guidelines under which the classroom should operate, you create the foundation of behavior management. Therefore have some rules of how every individual should behave and how the classroom should run.

While setting rules, ensure they are short and simple, straightforward or precise- you don't need to have long paragraphs as rules. Here is one significant factor you must consider while creating the rules:

Inclusiveness

Inclusivity in the classroom means that you ensure that every learner, no matter their individual needs and barriers to learning, has a voice and equal access to different learning resources and opportunities.

So as rules and regulations are concerned, you have to create rules that apply to each one, including you. In other words, make rules that will work for all of them and ensure that no one is above expectations. While creating rules:

• Ensure you involve your students’ participation- you can start with essentials and them make a group discussion before you settle on the actual rules
• Create affirmative rules- let the rules reflect what the students should do and not what they should not do.
• Give rooms for review- no classroom remains the same over a year. So some rooms may no longer be applicable. That said, you can review the rules when appropriate.
• Link the rules back to learning- this ensures the students see the benefits while following them.
• Focus on respect- and let every learner have some sense of self-respect and respect their fellow students and their teachers or elders.

b)Document and follow through the rules

You don't want your student to forget your mutual rules and guidelines. Therefore, you ensure your students have a way to track the rules. You can do that by printing and distributing the rules and regulations list and following through the rules with your learners. This ensures that you emphasize the rules and help them confirms if those are the same guidelines they had agreed upon. So when one breaks the rules, it would be easy for you to punish them based on the document. Put differently, definite rules would hold your students accountable for their actions.

But what happens when the rules are broken?

c)Avoid punishing the whole class

Some teachers commonly punish the entire class if they can't get an individual who has broken the law. But that should not be the case. Instead, you should ensure you individually isolate indiscipline cases.

Besides, punishing the entire class for the mistakes they aren’t part of would only hurt your relationships with your students and jeopardize classroom management strategies. In fact, the 1949 Geneva Conventions prohibit collective punishment and terms it as a “war crime.”

To avoid general punishment, therefore, you must be aware of the cause of any misbehavior. Keep in mind any preexisting factors leading to distress behaviors in students and any other early signs of misconduct, then focus on their preventions.

Furthermore, you can engage your students when you realize they are distracted, rowdy, or even inattentive. Try being friendly and find out the reasons as to why they act that way.

d)Deploy personalized learning

It can be hard to make rules or guidelines that work for all learners, especially if you don't know their conditions- health, physical, and learning abilities. So, one of the essential things that you must consider is understanding your students.

Of course, students differ in qualities, skills, and abilities to handle different tasks. Therefore, you must build a rapport with your learners based on trust and understanding. Some students may show irresponsible behaviors when they realize that their teachers are kind of taking sides. Or when individual students are experiencing a little more concerns than the others.

That said, you must ensure you get to know every student with their weaknesses and strengths and show compassion to all whenever necessary.

e) Enhance a learner-centered environment

A learner-centered environment is not only about giving information or teaching skills. But, it should also focus on the learning experience and concerns of every learner. And that includes involving them in every decision that you make, especially those that concern their progress.

Sure, you should show your students how well to behave or act in different situations. You can effectively do that by showing any wrong decision they make and correcting it by engaging them.

A learner-centered environment aims at:

• Developing respectful relationships between the teachers and their students
• Recognizing and accepts that your students are different and are experts at their own levels
• Creating a safer learning environment for students to change their behaviors
• Engaging students in different forms of learning like promoting participation opportunities rather than giving lectures

So, how can you make a learner-centered classroom?

Strive for an engaged classroom

Perhaps you're unable to manage your class because you have disengaged students. Therefore:

Present information in different ways- undoubtedly, there are different types of learners. And as the instructor, it’s your responsibility to ensure they both get the content being delivered. So, you have to deploy different kinds of delivery that would make your students more engaged. Or those that give your students the power to practice.

Therefore, you can deploy the use of stage presentations. You want to develop students who aren’t afraid of facing or standing in front of others; then, presentation is the best way to go.

Through presentation, your learners also learn some quality communication skills and keep their audience engaged. These are life term skills because they would need them in their future job interviews.

Allow learners to develop the learning content-you have to make your learners engaged and contributors to their progress. So, give your students some videos or podcasts and let them watch, analyze and come up with content.

You can either give individual tasks or assigned a group of students for specific jobs. Guide them on the topics to cover and encourage them to do more research to develop explicit content.

While giving the power to make content, you must, however, ensure that you provide a relevant task to their life experiences. So, first, you have to ask them what they would love to know or learn, and through sharing their experiences, you get to know their ideas and preferences.

Involve students in establishing the classroom guidelines-if you want to ensure your students are not disconnected in your class participation, then ensure you involve them in building the classroom expectations and procedures. You can start by asking your learners what they feel should be included or deleted from any appropriate behavior guidelines.

Hold a little healthy competition-healthy competition is a motivator as learners can look and assess their strengths and weakness by comparing their performance with their classmates. Even better, healthy competition would help create and develop problem-solving skills and abilities in students, among other benefits of healthy competition.

f)Celebrate your students’ performance or hard work

Teachers play so many roles in their students’ lives. Apart from being the “instructor," you are responsible for being a planner, peace-maker, manager, and most importantly, a motivator. If you want to build a good classroom relationship, it would be better to motivate your learners by celebrating their achievements.

So, how best can you celebrate your students’ success? Simple, show your students that you value the efforts they put in their works through:

Verbal praises

Verbal praise and encouragement are among the most straightforward ways to acknowledge, motivate, and celebrate your students who have worked hard on specific areas or subjects. You can also give a pep talk to individuals or group of students who struggles to get higher marks and encourage them to keep working hard. In the meantime, you have to identify and make known every milestone they accomplish and the goal with the actions that have contributed to their progress.

Finally, make your students know that your verbal praise is genuine and that you mean well for them, that sad, smile, and maintain eye contact while addressing them. It shows some sense of seriousness.

Writing a note to your students

Writing a note is one of the most personal ways of getting in contact with your students. Regardless of your students' years, receiving filled with praises and words of encouragement would always warm their hearts; hence they will feel valued. The next thing would be to work hard to ensure they continuously receive credits.

Sending texts or emails to parents and guardians of your students

Providing information to parents also plays a significant role in student outcomes. It helps parents know how their children are faring academically. If they are getting low grades, they can take responsibility for finding the cause of the low performance.

Similarly, parents and guardians would feel happy when teachers acknowledge their children's accomplishments. The parents would then discuss the positive comments with their sons/daughters. This would help the child some sense of pride that you have taken your time to share their progress with their parents. It can also promote familial discussions on the challenges the students face that may hinder them from achieving more.

Providing class incentives or celebrations

The best way to incentivize your students is to create a reward system- where you reward your learners for achieving specific academic targets. You can set both individual and group targets for your class. Once your students meet those targets, you have to find some creative ways to reward their accomplishments.

Depending on how well you have known your students, primarily from providing personal learning, you can reward your students by;

• Creating sporting events
• Organizing lunch or dinner
• Provide movie tickets or manage move times

Rewarding your students would:

Increase their motivation as most will show interest and raise your students’ participation in various classroom responsibilities so that they have a repeat of the incentives

Ensures appropriate behaviors- it’s natural for students to conform to proper manners when rewarded, especially if they want to receive the same presents in the future.

Help boost their self-esteem- rewards makes students become more confident and encouraged to achieve more result.

Ensure students complete assignments in time- rewards motivate students, and the chances are high that they would complete their tasks when they realize there is a reward in place for them.

Other ways to celebrate your student’s performance is through;

Displaying their work in the class

You can hang up your students' work in class. This will create some sense of self-worth and makes them feel proud of themselves. The chances are high that they would want to have more of their works hung up. Or other students would work hard for them too to have their tasks or work on the glass walls.

Hold an award ceremony

You can as well organized an award ceremony at the end of every academic year to celebrate your students' achievements. Invite their parents, board members, and some education personnel for the celebrations. You must, however, ensure you consider the awards based on the individual's personal growth and character.

Provide certificate of achievement

It feels good to have something tangible to show for your achievements. Or add a new dimension to your success. Those are but a few importance of certificate in education. Therefore, ensure you issue certificates to help your students celebrate their success. It will always remind them of their performance.

Most of the classroom management strategies that we have discussed align with how teachers should manage their students for an effective classroom. Now, it’s time to find out some of the ways teachers should conduct themselves to ensure the students accord them the respect they deserve.

Teaching professionalism in ensuring a well-managed classroom

In most cases, teachers would act as role models for their students. And what does that mean? That implies that you have to behave well and professionally. It can be challenging to force your students to follow the rules of certain regulations if you do what is contrary to your say.

The following are some of the activities that may spike inspiration to your students; and, in turn, make it easier for you to manage your classroom.

Prepare well to teach

You can control or manage your classroom through your teaching organization. But before beginning a class, you should ensure you;

• Identify learning objectives and take control of the class by explaining what they will be expected by the end of the lesson.
• Plan the learning activities and how you would engage your students
• Outline the assessment and evaluation criteria you’ll use in assessing your students. You must, however, remember to allow your students to practice their articulation skills.

Be on time

It can be tough to address matters concerning lateness if you're the topmost culprit. So for you to have adequate power while warning or addressing your students about being time conscious, you have to be on time with everything you do.

You have to arrive early in school and complete your tasks like marking in good time. Also, you have to organize your class and respond to your students' different questions, concerns, or needs proficiently.

Neatly dress

Respectful dressing plays a significant role in conveying your level of professionalism. So, whether female or male teacher, you have to dress well. For the female teachers, you have to avoid wearing short skirts and tops that reveal your body parts. Respectful dressing can boost confidence

Positively interact with your colleagues and students

While interacting with your students, you must understand a fine line between being a teacher, a caring adult, and a friend. So as a professional, never let your desires to be like your students get into your way of enforcing rules and regulations.

That said, don’t discriminate or show any favoritism against any student. But instead, give all your student equal opportunities to learn and succeed in your classroom.

You should also:

• Refrain from drinking alcohol and smoking while going to class
• Avoid using foul language in the presence of your students

Conclusion

Every teacher expects to find respectful, time-conscious, hardworking, and motivated students. However, sometimes they get the opposite of what they expect. If the opposite is what is served, then it's the teacher's responsibility to model their desired classroom. And that they can do by creating and implementing effective classroom management strategies.