Classroom management is not an end in itself but a part of a teacher's overall leadership role.
Managerial and instructional aspects of teaching are highly interrelated and in real-life teaching cannot be clearly separated.
Unless classroom management issues can be solved, the best teaching is wasted, thus making it possibly the most important challenge facing beginning teachers.
Theoretical and Empirical Support
A well-developed knowledge base of classroom management provides guidelines for successful group management as well as ways of dealing with disruptive students.
A large portion of disruptive student behavior can be eliminated by using preventative classroom management measures, such as clear rules and procedures and carefully orchestrated learning activities.
"With-itness", momentum, "overlappingness", smoothness, and group alerting all increase student work involvement and decrease off-task behavior and management problems.
Effective managers have well-defined procedures that govern student talk and movement, make work requirements clear to students, and emphasize clear explanations.
Researchers in the child-centered tradition study ways teachers develop threat-free learning communities that allow students to make choices and develop self-management.
Preparing for Effective Classroom Management
Effective managers establish clear rules and procedures, teach these rules and procedures to students, and carefully orchestrate classroom activities during such unstable periods as the beginning and end of class and transitions.
Effective managers have intervention skills for dealing quickly with disruptive students in direct but fair ways.
Teachers can encourage desirable behaviors by giving praise and granting rewards and punishments.
Specific approaches to classroom management, such as assertive discipline, emphasize the importance of being clear about expectations and consistent in administering consequences.
Classroom Management Programs
In the long run, effective teachers find ways to reduce management and discipline problems by helping students learn self-management skills.
As with other teaching functions, effective teachers develop an attitude of flexibility about classroom management, because they know that every class is different and plans, rules, and procedures must often be adjusted to particular circumstances.
Although many aspects of thinking about classroom management can be learned from research, some of the complex skills of classroom orchestration will come only with extended practice and serious reflection.
