Effective Classroom Management

I read the article titled "Effective Classroom Management: Teacher Preparation and Professional Development." This semester I have really focused on classroom management and the importance of it. At the beginning of the semester, I had a difficult time getting the class to listen to me and a difficult time getting lessons completed because the students would not listen to me. This created a problem for myself since I couldn't teach the lessons, the students that wanted to listen because they became frustrated during the lesson with the other students that were not listening, and for the students that were not listening because they were not getting what they needed to out of the lesson. My teacher gave me a few articles about classroom management and I have really benefited from the suggestions that I have read over the past few months.

I really liked the section about class management preparation - especially when it talked about new teachers. It is so true that newer teachers have a much more difficult time when it comes to classroom management. The article talks about how as a younger and less experienced teacher, the first response to a student that is disruptive in the classroom is to send them out - however, the students that are most likely disrupting the classroom are the students that really need to be in the classroom for instruction. Teachers that have been prepared for these types of behaviors and have the training and instruction on how to handle these situations will have a better way of handling the conflict and both the students and the teachers will benefit from this.

It has been very difficult learning how to manage my classroom and I feel that I have recently grasped it in my classroom - however, that took about 1 or 2 months to do so. In my own classroom, that's just too much time to spend getting the class under control and too much instructional time wasted. I would really like to do more research about various management strategies so that I can be prepared for my own classroom next year!