Effective Classroom Management

Introduction

“Classroom management is defined as methods and strategies, which a teacher usually applies to maintain a classroom environment conducive to student success and learning. Although there are many pedagogical strategies involved in managing a classroom, a common denominator is making sure that students feel that they are in a congenial environment that allows them to achieve their objectives.”[1]

“Edmund Emmer and Carolyn Evert son (1981) state that effective classroom management consists of teacher behavior, which produces high level of student involvement in classroom activities.”[2]

Many teachers fail because of classroom management problems. Classroom management and student achievement is directly related. Teachers should understand this fact. When a classroom is well managed, students tend to be self-disciplined and teachers are stress-free.

Generally, teacher should understand the developmental progress of students to manage a classroom effectively. Specifically, understanding child and adolescent growth and development, as well as issues of students’ cognitive and cultural diversity, is essential for laying the foundation of an effective and positive learning environment in the classroom. Good classroom management is important for student success. For this to happen, teacher has to be well organized, and consistent in everything. Teacher must maintain control so that instruction and learning can occur. Much of the control that a teacher has over a class is affected by what the teacher does on the first day of school. If you can maintain control during the first week that is an accurate indicator for how well the students will do for the rest of the year. It means taking the knowledge you have acquired over the years and incorporating it into the classroom. A teacher must help students look inside and find their strengths, weaknesses, passions, dislikes, and their uniqueness. A good teacher instructs on subjects while allowing students to develop personal opinions and to think creatively. It is also very important that a teacher is able to make learning interesting to the students and to make their education useful to them. Good teaching means being open with yourself and the students, so they can in turn be open with themselves and the teacher.

Classroom management can be defined as the manner in which a teacher handles the business of running a classroom.  This would include recording attendance, providing academic instruction and maintaining order in the classroom. The most important of these responsibilities is maintaining order, without which all other aspects of classroom management will fail. Ensuring order in the classroom is not only integral in providing “a smooth-running classroom, where students are highly involved in learning activities, which are free from disruption and chronic misbehavior". It is also the foundation of a successful career as a teacher.  Successful teachers are those, who can strike a balance between being a disciplinarian, instructor and manager to elicit the most productive results from students despite the contrary demands made by those students, who create discipline problems in the classroom.  Society wants schools to develop citizens, who think creatively. While it seems impossible to develop both creativity and order simultaneously, the best teachers seem to balance them.

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