I often hear substitute teachers ask, “Why is it that I do everything right when it comes to classroom management but the students are still off task?”
This is an excellent question! You will find that no matter how excellent your classroom management skills are, unless you have engaging activities, there is no hope for keeping the students on task.
There is a profound relationship between classroom management skills and teaching strategies. The better your teaching strategies are, the easier classroom management becomes. Also, the better your classroom management is, the more time you have to implement teaching strategies because you’re able to get through the lesson plan more quickly. I realize that you are bound to the lesson plan that the permanent teacher left, but there might be room for some creativity as to how that content is delivered.
For example, if the lesson plans say, “Read chapter 12 and have students answer the questions,” this can be exciting because you get to choose how to make this an engaging learning activity. This is where the teaching part comes in!
If this example lesson plan was left for you, you have the power to decide how to present it! Isn’t that SO exciting!? The possibilities are literally endless on how you could present the material rather than just having the students read it and answer the questions.
A few examples include:
- Group Investigation: Divide students into equal groups. Each group will be assigned a section of the reading. Groups will then present the information they learned to the rest of the class.
- Carousel Learning: Divide the reading into sections. Write the titles of each section and page numbers for that section on a poster paper. Hang each poster paper around the classroom. Students will then travel from poster to poster. Each student has a marker and has to write notes from the section onto the poster paper. Teacher will then lead a class discussion and answer the questions based on the information found on the poster papers.
- Concept Map: As students are reading the material, they are to take notes by filling out a concept map. The main idea is in a circle in the middle of the paper. From there, students will draw lines to other circles that support the main idea. A concept map is a great way to organize complex information and offer the chance for students to see a visual representation of the material.
Great teaching strategies = great classroom management.