Class Management Tips - Eliminate Free Time!
Are you keeping your students busy? You and I both know that when students are bored or unengaged, they wil cause trouble, don’t they?
Strong teachers get students to behave in an effortless and positive manner. Much of that stems from their ability to keep students engaged for the duration of the class. How can you manage this on a day-to-day basis?
1. Plan your lessons effectively. As you get more experience teaching, you will be better able to gauge how long your lessons will last. But for now, make sure youve planned more than enough to do for each lesson so that you wont have any of the dreaded free-time left at the end of class.
2. Put the most critical parts of class first. That way, as the class progresses, you can speed up some tasks while cutting other, less crucial tasks short if necessary. This flexible planning strategy will ensure that you dont have any extra time left at the end of class.
3. Be aware of your clock. This sounds simple, but many teachers struggle with this, and a little foresight will go a long way to effectively managing student behavior. When you see that your students are going to finish early, be thinking ahead. Do you have anything you can do with your students that will fill up those dreaded free minutes that occasionally crop up at the end of class?
4. Have something engaging that you can pull out in a crunch. Ive got a well-worn copy of Lateral Thinking Puzzlers by Paul Sloane. In it youll find hundreds of little logic puzzles that engage and challenge the students. Some of these puzzler books are for older students, but if you look, you can find something fun for any age.
5. Be flexible. If you see that the students are completely not engaged in what you have planned and nothing you do will get them involved, then try something else. Good teachers are quick thinkers. Don’t get stuck doing the same thing day in and day out. Try new things and innovate!
If you work to fill every minute of your class time, youll find that the number of disruptions you have to deal with get less and less over time. A busy student just has less time to get other students off task!
Doesnt that sound nice?
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