The Teacher as a Classroom Manager

An effective classroom organization plan involves advance planning of a lesson, from beginning to end, using a variety of procedures. For the teacher, this means utilizing classroom management techniques all throughout the lesson in order to maintain a consistent learning atmosphere. Such techniques involve focusing on the whole class, rather than on individual students and their behavior.

Because teachers are watched by thirty five or more pairs of eyes at a time, it is crucial that teachers focus on procedures that enforce his or her role as a manager.

To review, procedures are classroom methods for accomplishing daily routines and other specific activities that recur frequently in classrooms. They usually apply to a specific activity, and are usually directed at accomplishing something. An effective classroom plan usually has 90% classroom management and 10% teaching new material.

Some examples of classroom procedures are:

1.admit late students
2. how to greet and seat students
3. collecting and reviewing homework
4. methods of informing the class of the day's lesson
5. leaving the class.
Students will constantly test the teacher's reaction to all classroom management issues. In this respect, consistency is the key.

Content Based Procedures - Beginning the Lesson

Once the teacher has acquired control of the class, she or he is ready to teach new material. Some useful techniques include writing the lesson agenda on the board during the first five minutes of the lesson and discussing them. Others include doing something that will catch their motivation right away. Starting the lesson with taking the attendance roll often has the effect of loosing the students. Once the students are on-task, more menial routine procedures can be done quietly, such as checking the roster.

Maintaining On-task behavior

Students should be prepared for the main task of the lesson. If they are expected to read a historical narrative, they should be given enough background information. If they are to read a text that is not in their mother tongue, the teacher should pre-teach the new vocabulary. In short, the main task of a lesson should follow some prior activity, in order to elicit what students already know. Brainstorming is a good classroom management technique because every student participates on his or her level and every child is involved.

The blackboard (or whiteboard) could have all the components of the lesson, including the times, denoted for each part of the lesson. When the students have completed the tasks, the teacher can check them off.

Teaching is a mixture of "ups" and "downs." In one lesson, they can work at a high level and another they go down and forget all the things a teacher has taught them. But this shouldn't cancel the actual classroom organization plan, which should be based on reviewing and reinforcing classroom procedures as consistently as possible.

It is important to avoid repeating the same kind of lessons within a period of a month. Give the students a feeling of diversity and excitement.

Final Words

With time, students should know the basic routines and procedures of a lesson. They should also know which punishment a teacher normally gives for such things such as not handing in homework or making noise in class. At the same time, they should also know what they need to do in order to receive positive reinforcement.

Once students get used to a teacher's classroom management system, a teacher can start working on how to be more spontaneous in the lesson and "surprise" them from time to time, which may come after the stage of building the teacher-class relationship.

Classroom management techniques and activities in conclusion, should be focused on the whole class rather than on individual students in order to maintain an ongoing effective and consistent classroom organization system. Only later, can a teacher shift his or her attention to individual students and start using the more individual approach. Once a teacher passes this stage, he or she knows his/her class from inside to outside. Should individual problems with discipline persist, it is preferable to deal them in an alternative way.

**This article was previously published online at: htp://www.newteachersupport.suite101.com**

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