A Paper Presented by Idris Akura Kamaldeen at a Seminar Organized by Al-Madina Science Model School, Kano, Nigeria — on the Theme: STRATEGIES FOR EFFECTIVE CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

Date: Saturday January 23, 2020

Introduction

Classroom Management simply refers to the various ways that can be used by teachers to keep learners organized and attentive during classroom instruction. In other words, it is the process of managing learners’ behaviours with a view to allowing teachers achieve their instructional objectives.

As we all know, managing students’ behavior and classroom instruction simultaneously can understandably pose a big challenge to every teacher. And all teachers in history have at one point in their career failed/struggled to live up to this challenge.

There has been a great deal of research efforts centered on discovering the best methods for effective classroom management. And in the course of reading through these works, I have discovered some cases where a particular strategy that works for teacher A failed to work for teacher B. What could be responsible for this conflicting result? The answer is not far-fetched — Learners’ Individual Differences!

No two learners are the same. Differences can exist among learners in form of:

-Physical Characteristics (Body Size, Height and Gender)

-Cognitive Abilities (some are slow learners while others are early bloomers)

-Temperament/Personality Traits — extroverts (talkative, active, social and easily distracted, low attention span), introverts (anti-social, shy, great listeners, learn faster under calm environment)

-Emotional Intelligence — (self-restrain, self-awareness and empathy)

-Socio-economic status- (rich, poor)

-Learning Styles — visual, auditory, audio-visual and kinesthetic learners

The Strategies

1. Know Your Students:

It is our responsibilities as teachers to get to know our students and the individual differences that exist among them. The more we know about our learners’ motivations, opportunities and challenges, the more accurate we can develop learning activities that are going to work perfectly for them.

Questions

How well do you know the learners in your class?

How has this knowledge impacted/shaped your approach to teaching them?

2. Adopt different Method for Every Student in Your Class:

Because students don’t have the same set of abilities it is only natural that we differentiate our approach to teaching them with a view to meeting all their individual needs. Teaching methods could be varied in terms of:

Contents: The scope should span through the conventional easy-to-complex route to carry every member of the class along with respect to their level of understanding.

Teaching Style: Learners-centered and should be packed with lots of engaging activities to suit every learner in the class.

-Learning Aids: Use multisensory materials to appeal to the diverse interests of all learners in the class.

-Lesson’s Assessment (classroom assessments should be based on individual’s abilities and motivations)

Note that the Learning Objectives remain the same, but the roads to achieving the objectives might be different for all the learners. This approach is aimed at giving every learner the chance to find him/herself within your contents…

Question

How do you develop engaging contents for both fast and slow learners in your class?

3. Formulate, Communicate and Implement Rules of Engagement:

In a class where there are no rules, learners form their own rule and do as they like. Rules are therefore important in modeling learners’ behavior to suit teacher’s expectations. Communicate these rules properly with every members of the class. Learners would constantly try breaking them to test your resolve. Be resolute, consistent and intentional about them. Make the rules short, unique and relevant to addressing all perceived off-task behaviors in your class. You should let the learners know in fact that there are punishments for breaking the rules.

Question

Do you have any rule set for your class yet?

4. Begin Every Session with an Energizer:

Learners are faced with lots of stress and pressure which could negatively impact on their concentrations in class activities.

Some set of extra-curricular activities aimed at relieving the stress and re-directing their minds back to ‘study mode’ are required to give the teacher the right platform and atmosphere to deliver his/her contents to students. These activities may include simple exercises such as muscles stretching and taking deep breaths

5. Provide an Emotionally-safe and Friendly Learning Environment:

Teachers should create/promote a supportive, friendly and collaborative classroom with mutual respect for all categories of learners where no single learner is let down for his/her inability to quickly grasp the lessons being taught. Learners’ integrity should be well protected. Teacher needs to keep pace with individual learners according to their unique abilities. We should always give that slow learner more chances as would required to get it right. Negative comments can bring learners’ self-esteem down and consequently lead to increased off-task behaviors; instead, teachers should offer positive/heart-warming comments and approach each student with a smile and with kind words.

6. Always Plan Your Lessons:

Lesson is an important piece in classroom management strategy. The benefits of lesson plan to learners and teachers as well as its implication to classroom management cannot be overemphasized. Irrespective of your expertise and years of experience, every teacher needs a carefully drawn lesson plan.

Some of the Benefits of Lesson Plans:

-It gives the teacher a clear path/sense of direction on how to step the contents down and the techniques suitable to teaching them to learners.

-It broadens the scope of understanding about the subject-matter for the teacher.

-It promotes research culture and brings about efficiency in teaching

-It develops self-confidence in the teacher

-It helps the teacher to navigate through the contents within stipulated timeframe without losing track of his/her objectives

-It gives the teacher perfect control of students’ behaviours.

As the saying goes, “When we to fail to plan, we are definitely planning to fail,” so, when teachers fail to plan their lessons thoroughly, a lot of things could go wrong — it would be difficult to implement class activities that meet/engage the learning needs of students, in which case, they become disillusioned, bored and would rather engage in some off-task behaviours that could be difficult for the teacher to handle.

Concluding Remarks

The discussion about the best strategy for classroom management is still ongoing globally. As such, there are no sets of strategies/gold standards that fit all when it comes to classroom management. But one method that always wins is having requisite knowledge about learners’ individual differences. This will set the pace and make it easier for teachers to develop/sustain good personal relationships with students and thereby be able to properly manage their classroom behaviours. Every attempt made at effectively managing the classroom where this knowledge is missing, amounts only to pouring water in the basket.

As we plan our lessons ahead of each class, it is equally important and instructive for us to keep researching on the best methods, materials and set of activities available to gainfully engage our class and students with a view to achieving our instructional objectives.

With that said, I would like to most sincerely thank the management and staff of Al-Madina Science Model School, Kano for giving me the opportunity to share this little knowledge.

To improve this work, you can either send in your suggestions through my mail: kamaldeenidreez@gmail.com or use the comment section below