Classroom Management

Classroom management is a major part to having a successful learning environment. The class is the place where students spend most of their day, and so a child should feel comfortable in the classroom. While observing a second grade class I noticed some of the strong and week points that the teacher had in trying to keep the classroom organized and under control.Organization is a key factor to having good classroom management. In the classroom I observed the desks were arranged into clusters of five, making little groups for the student to learn in. By doing this the teachers relied on the students to be in control of the noise level because having student in groups tends to cause noise levels to raise. In order for this to work the teacher set up a reward chart for the classroom and which ever groups were the most well behaved receive a point. Every time she would say put your stuff away after an activity she would look around for the group that did this and was sitting quietly. They would receive a point and eventually the points added up to receiving a prize. By doing this the teachers taught the students that it is their responsibility to be respectful and quiet and most of the time they weren’t disruptive. The teacher never really yelled at the class to be quiet, which is a smart idea. She would just say lets see who will be quiet first and the children would scramble around to clear their desk and be quiet. This was fun to watch and it seemed that the children like this because it gave them a chance to get a point. The classroom had a set of jobs for the students to be in charge of such as collecting papers every morning. To start each week the teacher would change the students’ names around giving them different jobs so everyone had a chance to be each one. Having the students do thing in the classroom made them feel apart of the class and responsible for keeping the classroom clean and having a flow between activities. There were people responsible for cleaning the boards and collecting papers, while others were responsible for other daily events.Every classroom should have a set of rules posted in the classroom with things the children can and can’t do. This was the one thing I felt was lacking in this second grade classroom because it gave the children too much space to act up. The children would tend to wander around the class or speak without raising their hand. Although this was a rule of the class because every time a student would speak out the teacher would say please raise your hand first, it wasn’t known. It was hard to figure out what the rules were because they weren’t posted anywhere in the class. I think if they were posted the children my tend to follow them more often because it would be something they could read and begin to learn. I know that there wasn’t a rule about getting out of their seats, at least not a noticeable rule. The children would get up when ever they needed to, to get a paper or sharpen their pencil which made the class tend to be very active making it harder to teach at times. The classroom didn’t have many different learning stations for the children to spend time in. They never really used to carpet to do anything while I was there and the reading center was small so instead they would bring the books back to their desks. I felt the teacher should have allowed them to spread out on the carpet when they were reading because it gives the student a change rather than sitting in a desk all day. Although there weren’t many learning stations the stations they had were well organized. The books were nicely placed on shelves, with students’ names on some if they were in the middle of reading a specific book. I found this to be a unique idea but very useful because the students were able to finish a book they started without anyone else taking the book. This worked farley well but one student wrote her name on four books and wasn’t reading any of them which teaches them that they need to share. The teacher made sure that this was noticed and made point to let them know that they need to share. She sould tell themif they weren’t reading a book to take their name out of it and after a while the students would do this. While the children read it gave the teacher time to grade papers or prepare for the next activity. The children became louder than usual during this time but it was allowed as long as they weren’t yelling. The teacher has a list of the students names lined up in the doorway, in an order. This was the order of the line for when they left the classroom. It made getting in line quick and easy because the students knew where in line they belonged and no one was fighting about who was first. Each week the teacher would rotate the line so a new person was first for the week. This was effective for getting in line after music class and lunch because other teachers would tell them to line up and it would be done nice and quiet. The teacher would continue the rewards chart for when they were walking in the hallway and while in other classes so it caused the children to be more quiet and respectful while outside of the classroom as well.The last thing that I found as a plus to this teacher’s classroom was that she didn’t allow students to tell on others, rather she would ask them if it was something they did. They usually would say no and go sit down. After this happened she would tell the class that a person shouldn’t tell on others because it isn’t nice. She would tell them that we are a class doesn’t tattle and no one in this class should.Overall the second grade classroom was well managed by the teacher and she has special techniques to getting her students nice and quiet. I feel that more of the rules of the classroom should be posted for the students to actually be able to see them, but the way it was setup was effective. The only thing that I found to be disruptive during the class was when a student would just get up in the middle of a lesson to sharpen their pencil without asking, but this was allowed. There weren’t many problems that occurred and when something did the teacher handled it easily. I know when teaching classroom management is just as important as the lesson in order to have a successful class. There are many website to search for helpful tips on managing the classroom. I suggest that as future teachers research this and find what works best for you.