01. What Is Classroom Management?
Classroom management is consistently identified as an important factor in student learning. Yet beginning teachers, and even those who are more experienced, often struggle with creating and maintaining a well-managed classroom where students can learn.
In fact, beginning teachers continually cite classroom management as their primary point of concern. Despite the importance of classroom management, the majority of teacher education programs still do not require or even offer a course with an explicit focus on classroom management. Because of this lack of training, many educators begin teaching with numerous misconceptions about what constitutes effective classroom management.
Consider your own answer to the following question: What is the first word that comes to your mind when you hear the term classroom management?
When teachers are asked this question, they typically answer with words such is control, order, and discipline. The idea that classroom management is mainly about discipline is a misconception held by teachers that can actually interfere with effective teaching. In fact, effective managers organize their classrooms so that they avoid most behavior problems and therefore do not have to worry about discipline very often. While discipline is certainly an important component of classroom management, it is not the only component.
In addition, teachers often believe that a well-managed classroom is equivalent to an orderly and quiet environment, but the reality is that a productive learning environment can often be noisy because learning is not a passive activity.
Learning requires talking, sharing, discovering, experimenting, and questioning, all of which can create noise. Next, teachers frequently believe that an effective classroom management plan relies on rewards and punishments and, therefore, is approached in a behavioristic manner through the implementation of externally controlled incentive programs. However, teachers who are effective classroom managers often
find little need for a reward-based behavioral incentive program.
2. Effective Classroom Management: The Essentials:
Finally, many teachers believe that their instruction is their classroom management. In other words, they think that if they just teach a really engaging lesson, their students will be so highly motivated and engaged that they will not have time to misbehave. Again, while engaging instruction is undeniably an important component of classroom management, it is not the only one.
Developing these misconceptions will likely exacerbate the classroom management problems faced by teachers. For example, think about the teacher who believes that engaging instruction is the only component of classroom management. She will most likely blame the quality of her lessons for any problems rather than trying to understand other possible causes for disruption and, therefore, will continue to struggle with the same behavioral problems. Similarly, if a teacher believes that an effective management plan relies on rewards and punishments, he may have so many extrinsic reward systems put into place, that he may not have the time necessary to plan engaging lessons and will also continue to struggle.
