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 well. As you start gathering your years of teaching experience, youll find that you know exactly how long different parts of your lesson will take. For now, make sure you plan enough tasks that you wont have any extra time left at the end of class. Its better to have to finish up a task the next day than it is to have an extra five minutes of free time.
2. Order your daily tasks so that time critical elements happen first. This way, if you need to speed up other tasks or cut some tasks short, you can. Then you won't have any extra time 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 you can always turn to in a time emergency. I love the book Lateral Thinking Puzzlers by Paul Sloane. It has hundreds of challenging little scenarios for the students to figure out. For example, "Romeo and Juliet are lying dead on the floor in a puddle of water. How did they die?" The students ask you yes or no questions until they figure out that Romeo and Juliet were really goldfish whose bowl had been knocked over. Definitely this one is for older students, but it works great at using up extra minutes at the end of class.
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!
Keeping your students busy everyday they come to class will actually minimize the amount of disruptions you see over time. Eventually, even the most disruptive students will find other less engaging class to disrupt since you havent given those students the time to get others off task.
And doesn't that sound good?
