Classroom Management Strategies

21 min read
Classroom Management Strategies

As a teacher, you will often have to deal with students’ disruptive behavior. You will often find children running around or yelling at each other, which means you just can’t get a word in. A teacher’s inability to make students behave in an orderly manner is a sign of poor classroom management, which leads to burnout and stress.

However, disruptive behavior is not always extreme. It can be in the form of students talking to each other during lessons, cutting teachers off with their conversations.

You may have seen class teachers with excellent classroom management techniques and it looks surreal. To be a good teacher, you need to possess excellent classroom management skills. Techniques such as observing other teachers, workshops, research, and meetings can help you understand the students better.

Apart from that, there are other strategies that can help you improve classroom management and ensure a disciplined class. You don’t need to copy anyone’s teaching method or style. Pick the method that suits you and your students the best and also ensures a decent learning environment.

Best Classroom Management Strategies for Teachers

Best Classroom Management Strategies for Teachers

There are numerous techniques, tricks and strategies that you can use to implement a better classroom management. These strategies not only establish discipline but also improve the relationship and connection a teacher has with their students.

Student learning has to be a primary goal for a teacher which is only possible with the help of effective strategies.

Below we have mentioned a few notable techniques and strategies that will help you get better at managing your students.

1. Show Enthusiasm

When a teacher is enthusiastic and devoted to teaching, the students also show a better response. Making your classroom more exciting can help you elevate the student’s mood and help them start their day on a high note. It also shows a higher engagement, participation, and interest among students.

Presenting yourself with confidence helps drawing student’s attention towards you and what you have to say. It also lets the teacher establish themselves as the authoritative figure who the students should look up to. Showing passion shows the increase in attention span and higher engagement.

Although better attention may not translate to better learning but it ensures that every student behaves well. It is the starting point of better classroom management and cognitive learning for students.

Show Enthusiasm

2. Show Ideal Behavior

Children see their teachers as
and try to replicate the things they do. Therefore, you have to ensure that your mannerism around students are worth replicating. You can incorporate this in your conversation and engagement with students and colleagues. Some of the tips include:
  • Use adequate and polite language
  • Always maintain eye contact while talking
  • Let the other finish first before you add anything to the conversation
  • Establish criticism in a respectful manner

Make sure you also preach and teach this to the students to make them more respectable to teachers and fellow peers.

Show Ideal Behavior

3. Avoid Punishing Students

Negativity and strict punishments lead to rowdy behavior among students. Therefore, you should not opt for strict punishment during class. Not only does it demoralize them but also reduces their excitement and interest in learning. Moreover, it can also jeopardize your efforts for better classroom management.

You should also adopt a
to your approach and use adequate language to make students understand. And if a student is causing trouble repeatedly, you should talk to them in private. You should not insult students in front of the whole class since it can hinder their confidence.

Just talk to them privately and make them understand that their behavior is not acceptable and they should improve. Don’t tolerate bad behavior and deal with it quickly so it does not become a long-term complication.

Avoid Punishing Students

4. Offer Students Praise

Just as you would deal with bad behavior, make sure you also highlight praise for the students that perform well. It will help boost student morale and ensure decent progress. Many researchers have backed this point which indicates that praising students may lead them to become better students. Sincere complements can increase their morale and eagerness to learn more.

Praise can also inspire other students to be better to achieve more praise. It may improve their over-all self-esteem and also encourage them to do better. In the long-run, it will help you implement classroom management strategies that you always wanted.

Praise and encouragement also helps a student to repeat the positive action. It works as a motivating factor for the students and ensures that they stay inspired and strive hard to improve.

Offer Students Praise

5. Let Students Establish Guidelines

Another way to establish seamless classroom management is with the assistance of students. You can your first class by asking the class to mention and elaborate their thoughts on how the class should function. Rather than focusing on enforcing rules and regulations from day one, make sure to ask them about their thoughts an opinions on running the class.

You can start by asking them what should and should not be allowed in the classroom. This is a perfect strategy for new teachers. With the help of students, you can craft guidelines and paste it somewhere in the classroom.

Not only will this help the teacher start off with a lighter tone but will also set a clear set of rules. Since students proposed these rules themselves, they are more likely to follow them. Students often propose decent rules and regulations that are necessary for a classroom.

Let Students Establish Guidelines

6. Promote Growth Mindset

As a teacher, you should primarily focus on how to make students improve. And it can be possible through promoting growth mindset among them. One of the keys to is to promote initiative such as short presentations and participation of students in different activities.

Inevitably, you will have a class that is eager to learn and participate. You can encourage the students to come up in front of the class and explain what they learned. Not only will it boost their confidence but it will also make them more eager to learn the lesson. Ultimately, every student would try their best to get ahead and learn more about the topics to participate in class.

Promote Growth Mindset

7. Offer Free Study Time

Students love to engage in activities. It is evident that not all students can study on their own and often require assistant and help from others. To aid their learning, a teacher can divide the class into different groups and offer them free study time. You can also use other helpful tools to aid the learning which include:

  • Providing multimedia access such as audio books and documentaries
  • Maintaining a separate place for the students who wish to learn in private and alone
  • Emphasize on students collaborating with each other

With the help of free time, you can ensure that avid learners improve their ability further. Moreover, it will also help in improving the overall engagement of the class.

Offer Free Study Time

8. Assign Interesting Projects

Another thing that a teacher can do for effective classroom management is assign open-ended projects. These are projects that don’t have strict submission deadlines. Assigning interesting and open-ended projects can help students show off their skills and their knowledge.

You can start off by providing them plenty of ideas for the projects. Then you can ask students to pick the one they like best. Make sure that the project ideas are broad, open-ended and challenging to help them stay intrigued and interested in the project.

Working on a project can help them work and learn at their own pace. Moreover, it also helps them engage with the content they prefer. Students will start to look forward to working on new projects and collaborate with the fellow peers.

Assign Interesting Projects

9. Make Positive Phone Calls and Send Letters to Student’s Family

A positive call at a student’s home can prove an effective classroom management strategy that can foster growth among students. Mostly, teachers call back to student’s home to report a complaint or misbehavior of the student. While on some occasions, making these calls are valid, positive calls are also important. No parents want to hear negative things about their children and would love to hear something positive about them.

Try to make a positive call or even send a note home which focuses on positivity and ensures that the student’s parents are aware of their overall progress. As parents would praise their child, it may help them stay motivated to perform better and adopt an adequate classroom behavior.

Your feedback also ensures that the parents know that you are sincere about the progress of their child. It is also a nice thing to do since it evades them from the negativity for a bit. With the help of positive feedback, one can boost morale and encourage them to keep up the work.

Make Positive Phone Calls and Send Letters to Student’s Family

10. Hold Small Parties

Another way you can ensure a proper classroom management is by conducting small parties once in a while. These will help them stay motivated and positive whenever they are feeling drained from the study burden. Even if it is only 20-30 minutes, it can act as a fresh air for the students.

During this duration, you can let them play different games and set different activities. You can allow card and board games with snacks as well. Make sure that you remind them that these parties are a reward for their good behavior and if they continue to behave, they will get more parties.

If you start seeing the progress, make sure that continue celebrating it with the help of parties. One of the ways you can determine it is with the help of assessment results, good behavior and test scores. These small parties can also be a great way for them to engage and collaborate for a sustainable classroom system.

Hold Small Parties

11. Build Exciting and Interesting Teaching Plans

Lesson plans are an integral part of education on every level. Be it high school or middle school, these are a core part of every classroom. Make sure that you begin the class with excitement and not by a bland overview of the lesson. Learn how to hook their attention and induce excitement from the start.

You can even share the daily lesson plans with the classroom. All you have to do is paste it somewhere in the class where students can read it. The students may discuss the plan with each other before the class starts and get to know what the day will be all about.

Make sure to highlight the interesting aspects of the planning and lay out the learning outcomes in an easy-to-read manner. Don’t plainly mention the topic but adopt a question to invoke and spark interest. This will help you overcome bad behavior and will also ensure a compact classroom management.

Build Exciting and Interesting Teaching Plans

12. Focus on Group Work

Group work is one of the most effective techniques to increase collaboration among the students. To make group works more effective, you can draw out roles for each member and assign them different task. Not only will it help the students overcome arguments but will also make the projects seamless.

Drawing out the expectations will also make each student responsible for their actions. This way, you also ensure that the students become empowered to effectively fulfill their roles. Group work and projects have known to create more engagement and harmony among the class. This may prove as one of the effective classroom management strategy.

Focus on Group Work

13. Talk to Students

Another integral thing to keep the students intrigued and keep the classroom happy is by engaging with students. If you see any student who is struggling to get a grasp on lessons, you can talk to them separately to determine the cause. With the help of direct contact, you can ensure that their overall well-being is intact. Apart from that, you can also learn more about their circumstances too.

Each student may have a different learning curve, which is why it might be necessary for the teachers to adopt a strategy that fits every student. There are different questions you can ask a student who is facing some problems. They include:

  • What are the factors that help them focus in class?
  • Who are the people they find it most comfortable to work with?
  • What are their favorite lessons and in-class activities?
  • Which exercises and teaching methods work for them the most?

Make sure to follow their answers closely and then carry out the approaches to keep them engaged.

Talk to Students

14. Start an Off-Tech Policy

It is evident that the children today are the most-distracted than any other generation by technology. With recent developments such as mobile phones, tablets, computers, laptops and other devices, it is easy for them to lose focus. Teachers can start a policy where the technology devices such as mobile phones are not allowed for usage during lessons.

You can either tell them plainly about it and if they don’t abide, you can get them to place the devices on the table where you could see them. Moreover, you can also warn them about the marks deduction penalty. But first make sure to implement the new policy with friendly and polite manner.

Rather than a penalty, make them understand how technology has is impacting their overall growth. Remember that you can make your policies flexible, according to the needs and requirements of the classroom. It may take some time for students to incorporate it into practice, but it will be worth it.

Start an Off-Tech Policy

Types of Classroom Management Styles

Teaching is a profession that requires the teacher to create a sustainable and safe learning environment for students. There are plenty of ways a teacher can control and manage a classroom. And each approach has different impact on the overall progress of you as a teacher and classroom management. But how can you know which approach suits you the best? To help you out, we have identified the three most-used approaches that teacher use to manage students.

Types of Classroom Management Styles

· Authoritarian Classroom Management

This approach refers to the management style where a teacher has the control over their classroom. In this strategy, the teachers primarily focus on the rules and regulations of the classroom and try different methods to instill them in the students. These types of teachers expect the students to stay compliant with them throughout the time. They also have zero tolerance for misbehavior and breaking rules.

Whenever the students don’t behave according to the rules, the teachers resorts to different punishment methods. Apart from that, they also have less engagement and connection with the employees. The children in these classes are often intimidated and scared compared to other classes.

 These teachers expect the students to simply absorb the knowledge and behave accordingly. They also don’t adopt collaborative methods of learning such as presentations, group work and active discussions.

· Permissive Classroom Management

The permissive management is regarded as complete opposite of authoritative classroom management. These types of teachers often have a low control over the students and classroom structure. They also don’t plan out lessons to prepare the children and often rely on movies and workbooks to fill in the work.

These teachers don’t believe in the punishments either and adopt a democratic and friendly approach to teaching. Overall, the students also have a casual attitude due to the freedom they offer. This attitude often backfires since it hinders the overall productivity of the classroom.

Often these teachers don’t look serious about the future of the student due to their too casual body language and methods. In no time, the children take over and run the classroom. The permissive teachers are the ones that have lost their passion for the teaching and are not invested in their teaching anymore.

They rarely interact with the students or attend to their needs. As a result, the students in the classroom suffer and fail to get the sufficient grades required for success. It is understood that the permissive classroom management style is not good for the overall development of the students as it hinders their growth.

· Indulgent Classroom Management

Just like the permissive teachers, the indulgent management style offers freedom to the students. However, the main difference is that the teacher is devoted to help the students and deeply engage with them regularly. They have an ideology that the classrooms with strict structural levels will not be able to progress with its full potential. Therefore, they offer the students much more freedom and ensure that their learning capacity remains high.

These teachers are well-liked by the students as they show deep care about their pupil. But one of the major drawbacks is that they may lose their authority since students see them as a friend.

Indulgent Classroom Management

Frequently Asked Questions

Below we have answered the popular questions regarding the classroom management strategies.

 What Are Four Components Of A Classroom Management?

The main components for a classroom management include classroom design, rules and discipline, scheduling and instructional techniques.

Why Classroom Management is Important?

Classroom management holds integral value since it creates an ideal environment for the students to learn. It improves the overall social and emotional growth of the student and finally increases student engagement and interest in the studies.

How do you Develop a Good Classroom Management Plan?

There are different ways to go about it. But the main components to develop an effective plan are setting clear expectations, working hard and having a right plan.

Final Thoughts

The classroom management strategy helps the teacher develop an ideal learning environment for the students. You can incorporate these tips to start making a positive change in your classroom. Make sure to implement only the ones that suit your classroom the best.

At the end of the day, you should have a classroom that is engaging, abiding and more importantly disciplined.