Students become creators of knowledge by active learning approaches rather than just being passive recipients of information. For active learning to students, instructors should explain clear objectives, benefits, and expectations. Positive school culture is the bearer of student's achievement and some of the factors that influence this are the safety at school and student behavior (K12 Insight, 2017). The determination of this essay is to analyze and recognize elements of an effective classroom environment that are critical and the way the elements affect the learning process.
Management strategies for enhancing student responsibility and social development
Teachers take accountability for ensuring that students take responsibility and develop social adjustments that reflect positively in class work. Instructor's chief cause of stress is by students who have serious behavior problems (Jones " Jones, 1995). The strategies to use for enhancing student responsibility and social development include:
Nonverbal Cues.
This is a type of communication where there is the use of wordless cues such as physical appearance, body language and touch in classrooms (Plax, et al 1986). By this method, it would involve moving at the front of the classroom and make eye contact with students who are acting out and maintain eye contact until there is student attendance. There are some cases where this could not work for students who are not familiar with nonverbal cues and for their situation; there would be the use of verbal signal such as asking what they should be doing now. This will create a room of responsibility for the student and next time when an instructor is in class attention will present.
Timeouts
Variety of school systems supports this strategy and considers it an indispensable component. The use is to deliver emotional breather in a room that is less socially charged. This helps students reflect on, decompress and enhance self-awareness and at the end of the session, they improve their self-regulation.
Modeling
This is where students do more while teachers do less and it is a way of enhancing student socialization. It expresses good decision making for students and their way of acting for the common good. Modeling reduces student's confusion and enhances their understanding because this involves participation in general and creates the opportunity for them to be having more explanation from different sources in the classroom. Example of modeling is when a teacher demonstrates in a lab of how the students will do the assigned work and give them the tools to do it for themselves.
Models of discipline
This set of organized approaches deals with establishing, restoring and maintaining order in the classroom (Charles, Senter, " Barr, 1996). Teachers should hold the key to good discipline and both the students and the instructor have important roles in maintaining an effective discipline. The models to include for discipline are:
Stress student responsibility
Teachers should have forefront of the student having responsibility or their behavior because good choices come from good behavior. There would be discussions in classroom outlying student's responsibility, exploration, and clarification. Students would sit in an arranged manner of a tight circle and have a discussion on matters that concern the class (Osborne, 1996). This will help the instructor by having a fairground rule that there is responsibility for their actions and what ought to be done to the responsible person. This creates a common understanding between the teacher and students in where each party knows their expectations.
Accept no excuses
To have a successful discipline there should be the call for no excuses and teachers should use the strategy of not accepting excuses. This comes in two areas where first the instructor should not allow conditions outside the school effect or create a certain excuse for students. What goes on outside the school does not excuse for bad behavior. Second, in school, this may root bad conduct but this does not make it acceptable. Once a student has, commitment to good behavior there should be no excuse and the reason for this is that it is the student's fault to not live up to the commitment. This will help the teacher serve the students well in an effective manner where there is no allowance of breaking commitment and no reason of harming themselves. Teachers who care accept no excuses
Carrying out continuous review
A good discipline system calls for reviews in classroom meeting. These meetings can be of three types including social problem solving, educational diagnostic and open-ended. The discussions focus on two things that are identifying the problem and seeking solutions to the problem. Blame game should not be root to blame others, find fault on them or even seek to discipline them. The teacher gives opinions and remains in the background participating via students attitudes offering them to the group for examination. This will assist the instructor in knowing the students and finding solutions to problems in producing the desired effect.
Strategies for all students with abilities and disabilities
Teachers' profession has all kind of students and it is their obligation to have all students as on joint family even when there are differences. Teaching students with different abilities can be challenging but with a good strategy, the teaching practice would be a success. The strategy that can suite more with students with different abilities is:
Start slow and build
This will involve taking time to start and be consistent while building everyone making sure the progress is as a whole. Teachers have classes where in some cases containing up to 35 students and the task can be tiresome for a single teacher. Instead of thinking about the task, instructors should spend more time on individual needs and interest where this can involve one or two students. This will help the learning process in that within a few weeks the students will start to be responsive and defeat their academic or social challenges. AS time goes on, there will be a connection between student’s learning differences and the teacher’s lessons.
Teachers can use this strategy with another strategy of choice that does not distinct students based on ability or intellect; students can have different choices to choose from during the lessons. For example, students can choose which assigned work to do first that need teachers support. A group of students can do a case of homework that needs research while others with a subject such as math ask for teacher support. While the students are working in corporate groups or individually others who need more assistance have more time with the teacher.
Reward and punishment
Rewards should not only be offered to students who excel in their studies but also to those who exemplify good conduct and play a part in class discussions (Maag, 2001). This, for example, can include asking alone time with the student and acknowledge their effort. In some cases, there is giving a token gift to the students who excel in all areas such as gift shaped rubber band or recognizing their work by hanging their excellent work in the classroom. Receiving rewards and cognition motivates students to have good conduct offer challenge to other students to act appropriately.
On punishment, teachers should not really rely on consequences as the main strategy. This is because it can sabotage student responsibility and can encourage blame game rather than the student taking responsibility for their actions. Teachers should send the student involved to a friend room for some minutes or detention. This will make the students refocus and make them take responsibility for their action giving the motivation to behave well.
Conclusion
The paper has analyzed the elements that are critical in an effective classroom environment and how each element affects the learning process. A number of things that add to developing an effective learning environment for students are relationship and connections that students will encounter. Through respect, engagement and personal relationship is the key to the environment of the learning process.
References
Charles, C. M., Senter, G. W., " Barr, K. B. (1996). Building classroom discipline (pp. 233-34). New York: Longman.
Jones, V., and L. Jones. (1995). COMPREHENSIVE CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT. 4th Edition. Boston: Allyn " Bacon.
K-12 Insight. (2012). How to create a positive school climate: 5 key areas every school leader should assess. Herndon, VA: K-12 Insight. Retrieved from https://www.k12insight.com/ resources/
Maag, J. W. (2001). Rewarded by punishment: Reflections on the disuse of positive reinforcement in schools. Exceptional Children, 67(2), 173-186.
Osborne, A. B. (1996). Practice into theory into practice: Culturally relevant pedagogy for students we have marginalized and normalized. Anthropology " education quarterly, 27(3), 285-314.
Plax, T. G., Kearney, P., McCroskey, J. C., " Richmond, V. P. (1986). Power in the classroom VI: Verbal control strategies, nonverbal immediacy, and affective learning. Communication Education, 35(1), 43-55.
