With the fact that I need new ideas and perspectives, I have reached out to another teacher on campus for advice (trying to remain humble, everyone needs help). It actually turned out to be INCREDIBLY useful. She told me that she is still struggling with classroom management, and she has been teaching quite a while longer than I have. Here is something she suggested: Reflect on what is going on in class that is not right and then have that be the focus for the week in management. Just one thing to keep in mind and have the students focus on diligently. In addition, she told me to write it on the board for them to see so it can be pointed out, if necessary.
The first week, 10/25/10 - 10/29/10 I had students focus on staying in their seats and asking permission to get up. After the first day of reminders, and a couple of people in detention (only a couple minutes at lunch), the students were really getting it. They don't seem to find it horribly unreasonable, and I try to plan activities in my classes that require them to get up and move around.
The second week, 11/1/10 - 11/5/10 I am still working on, but the focus is: Raise your hand, wait to be called on, then speak. Students have this tendency to assume that if their hand is up, that is gives them an inherent permission to begin speaking as soon as it is raised. In addition, many students are yelling out to me to get my attention when they feel it is warranted. This too has shown a great improvement. Students are following procedures and order is being maintained.
Something else that I have tried this week is a new seating arrangement, which has been a HUGE failure. I organized the students into standard rows. I haven't done this in 3 years, and now I'm not sure why I did it in the first place. It restricts movement, which sounds nice in theory, but I believe it makes the students want to move around just to break free of their seeming imprisonment. I'm going to stick with it for a bit because I want to give it a chance, but we may have a new arrangement next week.
Classroom management is rough, but taking the time to work on it really does help. Asking for advice is definitely the first place to go. Also, try to look at one, maybe 2 things at a time, don't try to reinvent the whole thing at once.
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