Classroom Management Tips That Work - No More Free Time!

Are you keeping your students busy? You and I both know that when students are bored or unengaged, they will cause trouble, don't they?

Strong teachers get students to behave in an effortless and positive manner. Much of that stems from their ability to keep students engaged for the duration of the class. How can you manage this on a day-to-day basis?

1. Plan your lessons effectively. As you get more experience teaching, you will be better able to gauge how long your lessons last. But now you make sure you have more than enough to make every lesson so that you are not otherwise free time feared, at the end of class left.

2. It 's the most important part of your first lesson. As teachers, we seek to achieve different objectives for each day and every hour. Place the first of these objectives in order to set the time as you see fit as the lesson continues. In this way you are sure that you have more time at the end of the leftclass.

3. Be aware of your clock. This sounds simple, but many teachers struggle with this, and a little foresight will go a long way to effectively managing student behavior. When you see that your students are going to finish early, be thinking ahead. Do you have anything you can do with your students that will fill up those dreaded free minutes that occasionally crop up at the end of class?

4. Have something engaging that you can pull out in a crunch. Ive got a well-worn copy of Lateral Thinking Puzzles by Paul Sloane. In it you will find hundreds of small puzzle and logic, challenge and engage students. Some of these books are in the puzzle for older students, but if you look, you can find something fun for all ages.

5. Stay flexible. If you see that the lesson you have planned not only to involve students and some students begin to get the other one-off task, the students try to another task. We, as teachersbe quick thinkers! Avoid being so attached to your lesson plans that you cant see when a lesson is failing you and your students.

Keeping your students busy everyday they come to class will actually minimize the amount of disruptions you see over time. Eventually, even the most disruptive students will find other less engaging class to disrupt since you haven't given those students the time to get others off task.

And doesn't that sound good?