BY: SALLY S. FERIA
Head Teacher I
San Antonio Integrated School
Good classroom management is inextricably linked to student discipline. All educators-from the novice to the experienced expert- need to regularly practice good classroom management as a way to reduce the need for student discipline.
At the heart of good classroom management is the understanding of students and their social emotional learning needs. Educators must be always aware how social emotional learning (SEL) can influence the quality of teacher-student relationship and how that relationship is a part of any classroom management design.
Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the process through which children and adults acquired and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.
When the classroom is managed so that the academic and social emotional learning goals are met, there is little need for student discipline. However, there are times when even the best classroom manager could use a few tips to compare what they are doing with programs that show evidenced based success.
In connection to this, in order to leave educators with effective instructional time, there are classroom management components need to be considered.
Moreover, teachers need to plan for different blocks of time in the classroom: allocated time, the total time for teacher instruction and student learning; instructional time, he time teachers are actively teaching; engaged time, the time students are involved in a task on their own; and academic learning time, the time teachers can prove that students learned the content or mastered a particular skill.
Furthermore, when teachers plan engaging instruction for a highly effective instruction it does not fully eliminate classroom behavior problems.
Instruction can both encourage academic engagement. Thus, it is the teachers duty to create instructional material that students find educationally relevant, plan sequential order that is logical related to skill development at students instructional level to provide frequent opportunities for students to respond to academic task where they will be guided and must be given immediate feedback and error correction.
To effectively utilize this, teachers should be prepared for discipline and be Flexible for transitions and potential disruptions.
Consider the following suggestions: place lesson objectives and resources in an area of the classroom where students can see what the lesson will be, identify the usual times for student disruptions and misbehaviors, usually at the start of the lesson or class period, when topics are changed, or at the wrap-up and conclusion of a lesson or class period. Be ready to re-task students when they go off the established routine(s), be ready for the behaviors outside of the classroom that are brought into the classroom, especially at the secondary level when classes change. Greet students by name at the door to get a feel for their moods. Prepare students to engage immediately with independent opening activities, diffuse conflicts (student to student/student to teacher) in the classroom through a series of steps: by re-tasking by engaging in dialogue, by temporarily placing student to complete a task in a designated “cooling off” area or, if the situation warrants, by speaking to a student as privately as possible. Teachers should use a non-threatening tone in private talks with any misbehaving student, sometimes removal from the classroom is a successful strategy. Should this step be necessary, it is critical to alert the main office or guidance department. Removal from the classroom can allow for a cooling off period for all parties, but it should never become a routine practice.