SLC | S21W2: "Effective Classroom Management"
 |
|---|
I didn't get to put in an entry last week but today I decided to give this a beautiful shot. I love the topic already and the reason is not far fetched. It's because I've been a teacher for quite a number of years. I've taught well over 7 years and I still do today but not within the four walls of a cercular classroom.
Of course I've got few things to share about this subject and am gonna be using the guidelines given in this post as the basis for my entry. So let's get right into this guys.
Effective classroom management is one of the key skill a teacher must have to be regarded as one. I've heard of teachers who lost their jobs on this ground, this is to tell us that it's something very serious.
Effective class management is that skill set and strategy that help teachers create a conducive learning environment for students which in turn engages these students, motivates them, keep them focused and ultimately ensures that both student and teacher gets the most out of the learning activities.
Effective classroom learning has a lot to do with planning, implementing, evaluating learning, and utilizing resources optimally. Looking at the way we have listed these things, you would observe that it's in a chronological form where a step leads us to the other.
There would be no effective classroom management is there is no proper plan on the part of the teacher, planing in form of lesson to be taught, time to be used for such lesson, exercise to be dished out and notes to be taken. After all of these have been properly planned he has to ensure that it moved to the next stage so all of those plans do not die as ideas.
|
|---|
This leads to implementation where he puts those plans into action in the classroom and then ensures he follows them to the latter, afterward we move into the next step called the evaluation stage where he assess the impact of his technique in furnishing the students with knowledge. Lastly the utilization of resources is key, teacher has to utilize every available resources within his power to ensure the student are impacted meaningfully
I would go about creating a classroom atmosphere that supports the learning process with the following points below. Kindly take your time to gradually go through.
• Have a very good Lesson plan: This is very key for every teacher if he or she wants to really have a very effective class management. What I mean by lesson plan is having clear cut plan on how the lesson would go. This should include the number of week you would use in teaching the student, it also captures the time to be spend per period and lot more.
Usually this plan is prepared way ahead of the school academic season so you can be ahead of the game. There is this common saying which say "One does not learn how to shoot a gun on the battle field, you rather learn before". This is what lesson plan does.
 |  |
|---|
• Build good relationship with your students: This is also key for every teacher, sometimes you do not get to see the best in some of these students untill you build a relationship with them that get them to be vulnerable around you, exposing their weakness and trusting you to identify it and help them so they can actually improve.
Lack of relationship between students and teacher is what make some student remain the way they are. Building relationship with students is not out of place, it's also part the professional aspect of teaching and not some informal thing. The goal is to ensure that everyone in the class is carried along.
• Have a clear and reliable routine: This is very important, do not always take your student by surprise, they would get tired of it and of course that would be your undoing. Be sure to have a routine they can relate with and also prepare for. You can tell them you would always do a revision of the last lesson each time you come to teach and whoever is not able to contribute meaningfully will be punished...
This information alone would make many sit up and buckle their shoes because they wouldn't love to be punished and then you find this kind of student reading ahead of every of your class. This was my own personal experience back in the days as a student. It worked for me and am sure it also did for many more person.
• Know when to play and when to be serious: Student can be very funny sometimes, am not trying to describe "funny" the way you know it to be now. I mean can be very nasty in the sense that they could take everything as joke if you allow them. To have a very good class management you need to draw line around this things.
They should know when to laugh and joke and when such should end in between lectures. Establishing this would really have to come from you but if you expect the student to be so composed to do this then you lie because you would get the worst shocker of you life. Be firm when you really need to.
• Establish rules: I think I would like to go a deep further with our last point by saying you have to establish rules for effectiven classroom management. Do not make your classroom where anything goes. There won't be any meaningful activities in that classroom. A class where student can just stroll in anytime the teacher or lecturer is teaching is not solid enough. There are many more of this bad behaviors and excesses among students that only standing and solid rules can fix.
Factors that can hinder effective classroom are diverse but then, I would mention some of in this section, kindly tag along as I unravel.
• Classroom size vs No. Of student:** if this is not well managed, it would result into poor class room management. A classroom is supposed to accommodate an ideal number of students for the learning to be effective but where we have more than required number of student in a classroom, the reverse would be the case. Effective classroom management would never be achieved.
• Disruption from school authority: There are times teachers get all caught up and boxed when it comes to effective class management because the school authority imposes measure that makes it impossible.
For example subjecting students and teachers to extended period of teachings and learning and some other time, managing few teacher for too many student and for many subjects make the whole thing messy, putting so much on these teachers as the management and expecting them to perform is inhuman.
• External events and distraction: There are institutions of learning that are situated in environment where random things happens. They are random like I said but they are enough to distort the learning process. Imagine building a school very close to a livestock farm, poultry to be precise, so many things around the farm is enough to distract the student. The ordou oozing out from the farm is one, the noise, etc.
• Poor planning and implementation: this point is actually and specifically for the teacher or lecturer in question. If you do not plan your activities around the classroom well, everything becomes messy and ineffective. As a matter of fact, your planning start before you even approach the classroom, therefore poor planning or lack of plan would disrupt things.
There is a direct link or relationship between effective class management and learning contract. We understand that learning contract is that agreement that aim to bring cooperation between students and teacher for effective learning.
Effective classroom management is just a practical way of expressing the contract...where teacher has to do all in his ability to meet up with his expectations by creating the modules operandi for the learning and then student submitting their self to learn under those rules and teaching techniques designed by the teacher.
I would live to drop my pen at this point having shared so many things with y'all but just before I go, I would love to invite @radleking, @rakiya @m-fdo to this contest.
Regards
@lhorgic❤️