Planning for Effective Classroom Management in Middle and Secondary Schools

The last meeting of MMSEL course, the first group presented about their topic: “Planning for Effective Classroom Management in Middle and Secondary Schools”. They used PPT files consisted some video which can visualize some points in the explanation.

First, their explanation was about “Five Principles of Planning for Effective Management Classroom”, there are:

a. Differentiating the instruction, assessment, and activities to the students based on the theory of stage development

b. Planning a good instruction to have a well-managed classroom

c. Organising the classroom

d. Setting the regulations in class with the students to be implemented

e. The first impression affects our image for a year teaching.

I do agree with those principles, but to make them real is not merely that easy. There are some problems arise from those principles:

a. When we have differentiated the instructions based on stage development theory, each student has different stages; it means the students are various. Too much instruction to differentiate the students will time consuming, and too little instruction to differentiate them will not cover their needs, but to find the greatest one it depends on the culture in that school, so we cannot generalise it.

b. When we have planned a good instruction, it is often much different with the reality. There will be the limitation over here, over there, and everywhere. So, we should make a flexible-good-instruction. Think creative and innovative by the limited resources.

c. The same problems arise when we organise the classroom. If we want to create a good setting of the classroom, it is often clash with the school’s regulation.

d. When we set the regulation with the students, the student will often break it. For example if the regulation is about using mobile phone in class. I think the students who are the teenagers; it’s hard to separate them with that gadget. So, to be strict in regulation, we also have to be a strict teacher that is often “hated” by the students.

e. The first impression affects our next teaching. It’s not false and not true too. Based on my experience, so many teachers were good in the first meeting but they were boring for many times teaching. What I want to emphasise is to be flexible. We should really know what students want and what the best for them. If we are good in the beginning and keep using the same strategy in the next teaching, the students can feel comfortable but they also can feel uncomfortable. Let’s say they if feel comfortable, it’s good, but if they feel don’t we should be flexible and creative.

Second, they talked about how to Plan an Effective Classroom Management in Middle and Secondary School. They said that there are four things that teacher should know:

a. Characteristics of middle and secondary students

b. Rules and procedures

c. Arranging the physical environment

d. Personalising classroom

I think those 4 things are similar with the previous explanation about Principles of Planning for Effective Management Classroom, they are just similar.

a. When they talked about students characteristics, they re-explain about the teenagers and about the teacher that should make creative activities.

b. When they talked about the rules and procedure, they re-explain about the rules, the consistency of implementing rules, etc.

c. When they talked about arranging the physical environment and personalising classroom, they re-explain about the similar thing.

So, I think they just added more explanation in the part B (4 things that teacher should know how to Plan for Effective Classroom Management in Middle and Secondary School)

Third, they talked about Four Things that Teacher Should Notice about The Classroom in Urban Environment:

a. Caring

b. Clear standard for acceptable behaviour

c. High structure

d. Effective instruction.

Again, I think those things are still related to the previous explanation.

a. When they talked about caring, their point is that the teacher should know the characteristics of each student.

b. When they talked about clear standard, their point is about the regulation, and its consistency to be implemented.

c. When they talked about high structure, their point is about well preparation until the learning process happens.

d. When they talked about effective instruction, their point is about how to give a good instruction. There are three things: clear, firm, and proactive.

All in all, I think Group one has provided a good explanation about Planning for Effective Classroom Management in Middle and Secondary Schools, but they just re-explain their materials into three parts. They just added some information in each-next part.