Maintaining Order in Your Classroom

Blog Post 14: What Did I leave out?

One of the most challenging aspects of being a new teacher is learning how to maintain order and effectively disciplining your students. Part of providing an optimal learning environment is to ensure that each student has a safe and well maintained classroom. Write a post explaining how you would handle disruptive behavior and maintain an orderly classroom.

Here are some resources to help you get started:

How to handle discipline problems with effective classroom management

University of Delaware Center for Teaching and Assessment of Learning

Managing and Improving Behavior in Inclusive Educational Environments

Hot Topics: Managing Disruptive Behaviors in the Classroom

Blog Post 14:Managing My Classroom

By: Douglas R Jarvis Jr.

I can only imagine the butterflies a new teacher feels on their first day of having their own class. In observation and student teaching, we have backup in a veteran teacher there to help us. It is our job to provide a safe and orderly learning environment for each of our students. We will face disruptive behaviors in our career there is simply no way around it. In researching this topic I learned quite a bit. Foremost is to be overly prepared to teach your lesson. Students can tell if you are knowledgeable and prepared. If they sense you are not, they will not respect you. This lack of respect will lead to students tuning you out and you can quickly lose control. Observing your students body language is another way to help curb disruption. If you notice they are bored then stop and try a fun exercise to refocus everyone. Bored children will be far more likely to misbehave than children that are captivated by the activity. Another way to help maintain order is to be actively involved with your students lives.Talk to them and show them that you care about their concerns. Always treat every student with respect and build a reputation as someone that is fair and that cares.Keeping your word and honoring all of your commitments to your students is also very important. You can not expect them to respect your authority if you do not honor your word. Avoid letting students see you in a depressed state. Life is hard but, you must try hard to always present a positive attitude. Children will respond positively to positive attitudes more often than not. Finally, detail and outline what is expected in your classroom. Ensure that the students understand clearly what is acceptable and what is not. Providing them with a code of conduct is a good way to handle this. Let them know what the consequences for not honouring that code of conduct are. Do not play favorites, you must honor your code of conduct and ensure that every student is treated fairly and equally.

    

Unfortunately, there is no sure fire way to prevent trouble in the classroom. So how do we handle it when it arises. Being decisive is very important. Do not repeat yourself over and over. Act swiftly to curtail any disruptive behavior and implement the disciplinary action that is appropriate. Having communications with the parents is important. Let them help you to keep students in line. Remember even in disciplining a student be respectful and professional. Use it as an opportunity to express to the student that you still care about them but that you have to ensure your students have a positive learning environment. Punishment is not a favorite aspect of the job for most teachers. It is important to remember that we are there to teach not to remove students. We should always make every effort to correct behavior in the classroom before turning to suspension.