CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT
Classroom management is one of the most important factors to create a suitable classroom environment for learning. Teachers have the responsibility to enable this condition. Namely, if teachers maintain the discipline in the classroom, they might reach the goal of the lesson.
First of all, classroom management is a part of teaching and it doesn’t seem very easy. Teachers may take students’ attention to the lesson at high rate if the classroom environment is suitable. Namely, teachers might increase students’ performance levels if they maintain the discipline in the classroom. Actually, this situation is based on the teacher’s effectiveness. For example, students’ achievement levels might differ due to teacher effectiveness. The most effective teachers might gain 52% over a year’s time while the least effective ones might gain 14% (Marzano&Pickering,2003).Therefore, teachers’ effectiveness is very important and classroom management is one of the things that contributes to this factor about student achievement. However, to provide the management cannot be possible by frightening students with grades, threats or etc.
“Poor management wastes class time, reduces students’ time on task and detracts from the quality of the learning environment” (Marzano&Pickering,2003)
Actually the good management may occur if teachers see every student different from each other so it requires developing different styles to every student. There are some researches which explain the importance of teachers’ behaviors toward students for the management. According to the findings, effective classroom managers use different strategies for every student so the classroom environment becomes suitable for teaching and learning. Thus, teachers should use some techniques to maintain the discipline in the classroom. However, before using these techniques, they have to state the rules of the classroom and the schedule of the routines .For example, the first two weeks of schools are very important to establish the rules and routines. In addition, the first impression of the teacher on student is very important. Hence, teachers should pay attention on it. They should be warm but assertive in the first day, so they might create strong models on students’ minds (Marzano&Pickering,2003). Also, there are some keys to give clues to students about teachers’ management styles such as arranging and decorating the classroom (Marzano&Pickering,2003) or using projectors that enables teachers to see what is happening in the classroom that is called “with-it-ness” as well.
In addition, using some techniques to provide behavior and classroom management may contribute to increase the achievement and engagement levels of students.Helping skills can be used for different types of students (Marzano&Pickering,2003). Namely, to apply different strategies to every student is a critical factor that affects the success of individuals which was mentioned before and it is assumed that teachers who behave according to this principle as effective (Marzano&Pickering,2003). Actually, we can give different examples to these effective teacher styles such as being patient when communicating with students because if communication is healthy, the flow of lesson becomes successful. On the other hand, teachers might pay attention on being assertive and respectful to individuals. For instance,” teachers should keep respectful and positive tone of voice when misbehaviour occurs” or “they should avoid overusing of shouldn’t, mustn’t” (Rogers,2002).
Actually, we can enlarge the category of intervention techniques. For instance, teachers don’t have to always warn students if they misbehave. As an example, the teacher may ignore a student who shouts in order to answer a question instead of raising the hand. On this condition, he/she applies “tactical ignoring” so the student may figure out his/her fault and may change it with respect to the classroom rules (Rogers,2002). Sometimes teachers use “non-verbal cueing”(Rogers,2002) which means that to come near the student and looking him. Maybe, teacher might want to talk the student after the class, so the instructor doesn’t insult the individual in front of their peers. Besides these, teachers shouldn’t engage discussion with students. They may use direct questions that prevents creating argument environment with them. Namely, if they cannot deal with the misbehaviours, to use “commands” or “direction” (Rogers,2002)can be better but they should think of their language before talking. They might insist on reminding the rules in a calm tone and they should give them some time to remember the rules and obey them. This case prevents unnecessary tension between the student and the teacher. Indeed using positive language and insisting on classroom rules without arguing with students are the key principles of behaviour management of students (Rogers,2002).All of these things enable the flow of lessons to be smooth, so learning and teaching environment may become healthy.
To conclude, classroom management is important as the strategies that teachers use or lesson plans that teachers prepare. To increase the performance of students at lessons, teachers should pay attention on this issue because students might be more successful if they have a teacher who knows what to do and how to direct students in the classroom.
Başak Çalık
REFERENCES
Marzano,R.J.&Marzano,J.S&Pickering D.J.(2003).The Critical Role of Classroom Management.Classroom Management That Works.USA,Alexandria,Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Marzano,R.J.&Marzano,J.S&Pickering D.J.(2003).Getting off to a Good Start. Classroom Management That Works.USA,Alexandria,Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Rogers,W.A.(2002). The Language of Behaviour Management.Classroom Behaviour.London,Paul Chapman Publishing.
The photo from:www.4faculty.org/
