Classroom Management Revised

There are so many things you need to think about when trying to manage your classroom. As I talked about in my last post, I really want my classroom to be a warm, welcoming environment for my students. I want them to know and feel like they can talk to me about anything and come to me when they are having troubles in my class or others. In order to accomplish that goal, I think I need to use SLT a few ways. First I need to make sure that I teach to my students in their "language" so that way we are always on the same page. Misunderstanding between the student and teacher can lead to misbehaving, and that is what I don't want.

When teaching my lessons, I would of course need to use DLT and start teaching at the most concrete and basic level possible. Then once my students developed higher level thinking skills I could teach in more abstract terms as well as concrete terms.

I also need to make sure there is a good amount of student and teacher interaction since I will be the more knowledgeable peer in the classroom for the first part of school. If I am able to form a relationship with my students my ideal classroom environment will hopefully be accomplished, and my students will feel comfortable around me.

I also plan on walking around the room constantly when possible to make sure that my students are paying attention. By walking around and having my students pay attention, I am using CLT through keeping my students actively mentally engaged. If I can successfully keep my students mentally engaged, then I will be able to affect their schemes in some way. Ideally affecting their schemes would be in the form of a positive learning experience.

I also need to use CLT to manage my classroom by teaching in my student's Zone of Proximal Development. This way my students should not become bored or discouraged with the information that I am teaching to them.

I also want to motivate my students to want to be in class everyday. I could do this by not wasting their time with silly assignments and "time fillers." Doing so would be using BLT in my classroom. Of course I could use the system of rewards and punishments in order to manage my classroom, but I want to only use that system when completely needed. I really don't want to develop the relationship with my students where they depend on constant praise for good work.

Another thing that I think is really important to classroom management is allowing students to talk in small groups about their ideas. That way students can share their ideas, compare them with other ideas, and come up with new ideas as a group as well. This would again be using SLT in my classroom.

Overall, I am sure there are so many more things that I can do to manage my classroom. However, since i am barley a future teacher I think I will focus on a small group of management options before trying to control everything. Which is also exactly what I don't want to happen in my classroom. My class will be inviting, fun, and flexible, or at least I hope I can make it that way in the future.