Classroom Teaching And Management

Effective teaching in the classroom depends on a tactfully managed class. Classroom management is simply the technique used to maintain a healthy learning environment relatively free of behavior problems. There are some terms related to classroom teaching and management which needs to be understood to manage a classroom. These terms are; allocated time means the time set aside by the teacher for learning, Engaged time or time on a task that is the time spent by actively engaged in the learning at hand, academic learning time is the time when students are actually succeeding at learning tasks, participation structures are the rules for learners defining how to participate in different activities and consequences instead of punishing have students re-do, repair, or in some way face the consequences that naturally flow from their actions.

The purpose of classroom management is to maintain a positive and productive learning environment which is supportive to maximized learning. It is unethical to use classroom management techniques just to keep students docile and quiet. A well managed classroom environment increases academic learning time by keeping students actively engaged in meaningful and appropriate learning activities. A learning environment is created in classroom when rules and procedure are distinguished as rules are the specific statements regarding expected and forbidden behaviors. They are the specific dos and don’ts of classroom life. 

However, Procedures are prescribed steps for learning activities and they are seldom written down. They are simply the ways of getting things done in class. There is another distinction that is between personal territories and interest-areas spatial arrangements. Personal territorial arrangement is about traditional classroom arrangement while interest areas spatial arrangement is the functional space divided into work areas. Effective classroom managers spend the initial days of the session while teaching a workable, easily understood set of rules and procedures by using a lot of explanations, examples and practice.  

A productive and enabling environment for learning can be maintained by through encouraging engagement by; increasing supervision, assigning tasks which provide continuous cues, activities with clear steps, making work requirements clear and specific, providing needed materials and monitoring. In order to maintain a positive environment and prevent behaviour problems, the teachers must take into account the individual differences, retain students’ motivation, reinforce positive behaviour, establish caring classroom community and teach students to use social skills and emotional self-regulation skills. On undesirable behaviors, describe seven levels of intervention such as; eye contact or nonverbal signals, verbal hints such as taking the name in discussion, ask if the student is aware of negative effects, remind the procedure and ask him/her to follow, ask to state the rule or procedure and follow, ask to stop undesirable behavior and meet privately to work out the consequences.

There are some challenges in classroom that teacher have to face while managing classroom such as withitness that is awareness of everything happening in classroom, Overlapping which means supervising several activities at once, focus groups that the ability to keep involved as many students as possible in activities, Movement management implies keeping lesson and group moving at an appropriate pace and Pre-correction is a way of preventing serious behaviour problems of students who have been labeled at risk by directing towards more appropriate actions.

It is imperative that effective managers of classroom need to be aware of the classroom teaching and management. They need to understand the related terms, purposes of classroom teaching and management, techniques to create and maintain a positive and productive learning environment to overcome foreseen challenges in classroom. Working on all important areas of classroom teaching and management ensures effective teaching that ultimately benefit the students.