Classroom Management: Creating Productive Learning Environments

1. Classroom Management: Creating Productive Learning Environments What is classroom management?

2. Productive Learning Environment – a classroom that is safe and orderly and focused on learning • Central to effective classroom management • Students are well behaved, emotional climate – relaxed & inviting • Learning – Highest priority What is a Productive Learning Environment?

3. Classroom management – all the actions teachers take to create an environment that supports academic & social-emotional learning • Important – suggest that schools & teachers are in charge & know what they’re doing! • Contributes to learning and development • Students – more motivated to learn • Learn more – well managed • Emphasize – respect & responsibility • Avoid – criticizing What is a Productive Learning Environment?

4. Successful classroom management – begins with goals • Guide out actions • Classroom management vs. discipline • Management prevents problems from occurring • Effective Classroom Management: • Creating a positive classroom climate • Creating a community of learners • Developing learner responsibility • Maximizing time and opportunity for learning Goals of Classroom Management

5. Creating a Positive Classroom Climate • Learners feel physically & emotionally safe, personally connected to both their teacher & their peers, & worthy of love & respect • Bullying/other harmful acts – not tolerated • Positive classroom climate – essential • Creating a Community of Learners • Positive emotional climate = learning community – a place where you & your students all work together to help everyone learn • Involved all students • Student help in developing procedures • Respect for all Classroom Management

6. Developing Learner Responsibility • Helping students learn to be responsible – one of the biggest challenges • Talk about it, teach it, help students understand the consequences for behaving irresponsibly • Ongoing effort • Maximizing Time & Opportunities for Learning • Allocated time • Amount of time a teacher/school designates for a content area • Instructional time • Time left for teaching after routine management & administrative tasks • Engaged time • Time students are paying attention & involved in learning activities • Academic learning time • Student are successful while engaged in learning activities Classroom Management

7. Communicating Caring • Teaching Effectively • Organizing Your Classroom • Preventing Problems through Planning Creating Productive Learning Environments

8. Caring – refers to a teacher’s investment in the protection and development of young people • Caring teacher – heart of productive learning environment • Research – students are more motivated & learn more in classrooms where they believe teacher like, understand & empathize with them • Call student by first name – learn names • Greet students every day • Use “we” & “our” • Nonverbal communications (eye contact, smiling) • Spend time with students • Hold students to high standards Communicating Caring

9. It’s impossible to create a productive learning environment without effective teaching • Close link between management & instruction • Plan for classroom management & effective instruction Teaching Effectively

10. Classroom organization – a professional skill that includes: • Preparing materials in advance • Starting classes and activities on time • Making transitions quickly & smoothly • directions • Creating well-established routines • Turning in papers, going to the restroom, lining up for lunch • Essential for effective classroom management Organizing Your Classroom

11. Developmental Differences in Students • Different grade levels • All students need caring teachers who have positive expectations for them & hold them to high standards • Creating Procedures & Rules • Procedures – routines students following in their daily learning activities (how papers are turned in, when to sharpen pencils) • Rules – guidelines that provide standards for acceptable classroom behavior. • When consistently enforced – reduce behavior problems & promote a feeling of pride & responsibility in the classroom community Preventing Problems through Planning

12. Parent support – essential for student’s cooperation & motivation • Benefits: • More positive attitudes & behaviors • Higher long-term achievements • Greater willingness to do homework • Better attendance & graduation rates • Greater enrollment in postsecondary education • Strategies: • Send letters home • Maintain communication frequently • Emphasize students’ accomplishments (newsletters, e-mails, notes) Involving Parents

13. Intervention – teacher action designed to increase desired behaviors or to eliminate student misbehavior and inattention. • Moving near student, calling on inattentive students to bring them back to the lesson, removing student Intervening When Misbehavior Occurs

14. Stop the misbehavior quickly & simply • Maintain the flow of your lesson • Help students learn from the experience Three Goals of Intervening

15. Demonstrate withitness & overlapping • As a teacher – you know what is going on in your classroom & main the flow of the lesson • Overlapping – multitasking • Be consistent & follow through • Enforce rules • Keep verbal and nonverbal behaviors congruent • Keep words, tone and body language consistent – NO mixed messages • Apply logical Consequences • Use consequences that are related to the misbehavior Helping Students Understand Interventions

16. Responding to Defiant Students • Experts offer two suggestions: • Remain calm & avoid power struggle • Give the rest of the class an assignment • Defiance often the result of negative student-teacher relationships • Students – aggressive or impulsive and display temper tantrums • Student refuses to leave classroom or physically violent – send a student to the front office Serious Management Problems

17. Responding to Fighting • Incidents of student aggression toward each other – more common than threats to teachers • You must intervene – not physically- report it • Goal – protect victim & other students • Effective response • 1. Stop the incident 2. protect the victim 3. get help • Experts recommend involving parents & other school personnel Serious Management Problems

18. Responding to Bullying • Bullying – a form of peer aggression that involves a systematic or repetitious abuse of power between students • 44 states – passed antibullying laws • Districts – zero tolerance policies • Largely ineffective • Threatens students’ feelings of safety & security in schools • Teachers – central to help eliminate bullying Serious Management Problems