Activating Motivation and Engaging with Your Students
When it comes to the classroom setting, the essential thing required for an educator is to create and maintain a favorable learning environment whereby the learners behave responsibly and civilly, such that the educator can work without disruption. A pleasant learning environment is crucial for high-quality learning and teaching. However, in many classroom settings, there is a lack of responsible and civil behavior. Some learners demonstrate little respect for their educators. Others do not make any effort to learn, and a few deliberately disrupt everyone in the class (Charles & Senter, 2005). This type of behavior is harmful to both learning and teaching.
Consequently, educators who find themselves in disruptive classrooms experience little pleasure in their profession and often struggle, and some end up quitting the career. However, there are various ways in which an educator can minimize misbehavior so that they can enjoy working with well-behaved learners. Educators need to acknowledge the realities of misbehavior and learn how to overcome them. One of the realities is that learners are inclined to misbehave. Most learners will behave well at most times, but few learners may severely misbehave thus ending up damaging themselves, their peers, their educators, their guardians, and the community (Charles & Senter, 2005).
Another aspect that promotes teaching requires the educator to encourage responsible behavior in the classroom. An educator needs to learn how to influence learners positively to behave responsibly and civilly even when they do not want to. Unless an educator learns this, it may be difficult for them to teach effectively and may also be difficult for the learners who desire to learn to learn effectively. Another challenge an educator may face in their career is to foster responsible behavior to their learners. Certainly, the success of an educator and the well-being of the learners depend on the behavior of the student. The educator needs to establish the skills that encourage good classroom behavior.
Another aspect of teaching is effective classroom management. Classroom management is a set of guidelines that enables learners to pay attention, not to cause distraction among themselves, and generally to focus on their tasks. Classroom management is not the same as discipline, which is just one component of classroom management. Discipline focuses on the punishments administered to the learners for not adhering to regulations, whereas classroom management describes a broad approach of strategies, most of which are meant to avoid issues instead of responding to them (Charles & Senter, 2005). One example of classroom management is the classroom setup which is not discipline. After several classes, it becomes clear on which learners should sit near one another as some friends or “enemies” may cause distraction during the entire lesson. Discipline would be subjecting consequences to these learners every time they cause disruption, but classroom management is moving them to a location where they would not be able to cause disruption.
Another example that demonstrates differences between classroom management and discipline is the classroom regulations. Classroom management will happen when the educator makes the rules to be precise to the learners, either by holding discussions or by teaching using other approaches. Posting the rules and regulations in a strategic place in the classroom can help in the management of the classroom. Discipline would refer to the manner in which the educator reacts to violations of these regulations. Therefore, it is essential to articulate all concepts of student behaviors and classroom setting to establish a good learning and teaching environment that promotes effective learning.
References
Charles, C. M., & Senter, G. W. (2005). Building classroom discipline. Allyn & Bacon.