4 Classroom Management Slip-ups Teachers Should be Steer Clear of

One of the chief goals of education is to promote life-long learning. So, education should be able to motivate individuals to continue learning throughout their lives even outside the classroom. Being a teacher you should work on enhancing the development of life-long learning among your students. And as classroom management plays a pivotal role in helping teachers to achieve optimal learning in their classrooms, you need to prepare an effective classroom management plan to engage the students in learning.

While an effectual management plan can help you achieve your goals, a disorganized plan makes it difficult for you to do your job. To make a proper plan, you should avoid these classroom management mistakes –

  1. Not preparing an action plan

Students who show poor behavior are often not sure of how to improve it. Teachers need to create an action plan, which clearly describes expectations, as well as delineate steps a student can take to be successful. For example, if a primary school student is failing to earn good grades, you need to show him or her exactly what can help him or her earn a good grade. Without having a concrete action plan, you can’t help them. Talk to senior teachers to have an idea about the kind of problems that you can face in a classroom and make a plan to solve it. But you should always keep this in mind that you can also face an unexpected and unknown problem. Keep calm and try to solve it.

  1. Not communicating your classroom management rules

A well-managed classroom means your students have a clear view of what you expect from them. From the moment your students enter the classroom, you should convey your rules, expectation, and procedures to them. It means you must walk students through procedures, like how you would like them to line up or hand in their homework. Show them your expectations for routines. Besides, you should go over your rules or create the rules together as a class. Many teachers prefer to create rules together. It is because children tend to abide by the rules that they set for themselves rather than when they are told what the rules are. Besides, you should make sure your procedures are clear and predictable. It is okay to set high expectations as you can always lower them later. When you don’t communicate your expectations and procedures clearly, it can lead to an out-of-control classroom, where students don’t have an idea about what to do next. When this happens, students tend to misbehave more often than not.

  1. Creating rules that are too complex for students to follow

Whether you are creating rules for the students or creating them together as a class, make sure to keep them simple and clear. Choose 3 to 5 rules max and post them somewhere in the classroom where it is clearly visible to the students. Ensure that these rules are positive versus negative to help you teach students perfect behaviors that they expect. Even if you are creating the rules as a class, narrow them down or simplify them.

  1. Waiting to deal with discipline until too late

One of the biggest classroom management mistakes teachers tend to commit is waiting to deal with a situation as they don’t want to interrupt their lessons. In case you wait to deal with a discipline issue, then it can escalate into something bigger later on it the day. For example, if a student is annoying another student during a lesson and it is interrupting your lesson along with posing a problem for the students. The ideal way to deal with such a classroom management situation is to look firmly at the student or walk over to them and continue your lesson while standing right next to them. Deal with the problem as soon as it occurs to make sure it does not cause a bigger issue later.

So, from the next time, you make a classroom management strategy, prepare an action plan, communicate your classroom management rules, create simple rules for students that they can follow easily, and deal with the discipline related problems as early as possible. Focusing on these things will help you to be a successful teacher and make teaching effective for your students.

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