classroom management

Effective Classroom Management
According to Jones and Jones (2007) “There is little argument that a primary goal of public education is to provide students with skills to be happy and productive member of their societies” (p. 32). To obtain this outcome a teacher needs to develop and foster their classroom management skills. There are too many students missing out on a good education because of poorly educated teachers in the craft of classroom management. I would like to hone my classroom management techniques, through implementing new skills learned in this course.
My current approach to classroom management is proactive. I have high expectations that everyone has the right to feel “safe”. When students feel safe in their surroundings they are more apt to create and maintain positive friendships which are developed through mutual respect and admiration. Students are more comfortable in pushing themselves beyond their limits, which fosters intrinsic motivation, which leads to higher self esteem, which leads to more positive group interactions, which creates an even more compassionate classroom; resulting in a self revolving circle that requires less and less teacher intervention or maintenance.
My classroom management is a reflection of the care and concern I have for each and every child I work with. There is a palatable link between student academic success and the feeling of security which comes about through well groomed classroom management techniques. Students should feel safe make friends, safe to make and learn from ones mistakes. All students respect the warm and caring environment I am able to create through my calm, caring, collaborative approach to learning. Jones and Jones (2007) state, “We can be proactive and spend time building a positive classroom environment in which behavioral norms are developed by, agreed on, and practiced by students and instruction is meaningful and engaging. Or, we can be reactive and spend countless minutes responding to the disruptions caused to a large degree by our decision not to spend time building a community of support or engaging students in meaningful work at which they can be successful” (p. 33). I choose to be proactive. Even sever behavior students see the safe environment the classroom offers and actively mold their behavior to fit the requirements of a safe, compassionate, sharing learner.
From day one, students are expected to look after themselves and then to look after others in the class. I have great success teaching a new concept to only one student. When another student asks for help with the same concept I refer them to the first student I helped, and the new idea quickly filters out through the class. This approach allows the students to develop their intrinsic motivation to learning. It provides an avenue to practice providing assistance to others in the class in a manner that does not belittle one’s peers, but fosters relationships. The students, through re-teaching a concept to their classmate’s, develop a deeper understanding of the material. The result is a classroom of students who are actively engaged in helping each other out while learning beyond the basic understanding required by the curriculum. The student’s are confident in asking their peers for help and have had practice in providing help to each other in a compassionate way; further fostering bonds in the classroom.
I have never taken a classroom management course before. In the 15 years I have been teaching, I have had to learn through trial and error, in isolation of my classroom how to survive. I believe a positive approach to improving my classroom management techniques would be to collaborate more with my peers and experts. This could include taking further courses, viewing other classrooms, or simply discussing strategies with my colleges. I would like to focus on Jones and Jones (2007) model of a intrinsic learning environment with the following four components
1. Establishing inclusion- creating a learning atmosphere in which students and teachers feel respected by and connected to one another
2. Developing attitude- creating a favorable disposition toward the learning experience through personal relevance and choice
3. Enhancing meaning- creating challenging, thoughtful learning experiences that include student perspectives and values
4. Engendering competence- creating an understanding that students are effective in learning something they value (p. 248)

Through the emphasis I put on peer teaching and collaborative learning, I have accidently fostered the first element of establish inclusion and the last element engendering competence. The students feel very confident in the material they have mastered through the help of their peers. I believe the first component is the most important of all and has resulted in my success in classroom management; I would therefore like to continue to emphasize this in my class.
The components of, developing attitude and enhancing meaning, are areas I need to focus on in my classroom. I will do this by providing more opportunities for students to choose topics and methods of presenting these choices back to their peers, and presenting my lessons with connections to real life situations. Jones and Jones (2007) provided the following methods which I will try to implement, “Prior to a unit have students develop K-W-L chart...use learning logs”(p. 261). I will try to implement student blogs for students to write their own K-W-L charts and learning logs into.

REFERENCES
Jones, V., & Jones, L. (2007). Comprehensive classroom management: Creating communities of support and solving problems (Laureate Education, Inc., custom 8th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.