Learning Environment

How to manage the classroom so that the learning environment is fair to all your students?

In the classroom we spend all our energy and time to manage our classroom and provide them a meaningful learning environment. We focus our time on how students should be behaving and what students should be doing. While this is an important component into having an efficient and effective classroom, using teaching strategies that create a learning environment that promotes equality is just as important. Equality is about all students getting a fair and equal education. It is where all students pose ideas, share ideas, and are explicitly welcome to participate. Here are some of the ways that I use in my class that will help me in my classroom management.

Classroom Rules- Children need rules to follow plus we as teachers need guidelines for your kids to follow in order to teach and get the most from the day. I Sit with my students in the beginning of the year or anytime to design rules to live by in our classroom. Research proves that students who are involved in the designing of their rules will be more likely to follow them so allow your students to work on this project with you. Once these rules are made then make it everyone's responsibility to see that the rules are followed. I sometimes put some kind of short term reward in place for those who follow the rules such as give them stickers, stars, pencils or some other token. 

As teachers we must be prepared each time that we walk into class room. Children know when their teacher has done their homework and they respect the fact that their teacher cares enough about their learning to prepare themselves to teach the lesson. I carefully plan my day by developing a daily schedule as well as a lesson plan that is closely aligned to the stipulations provided by the school district. These plans helps me to think about the  needs as well as the learning styles of each student in my classroom; in other words students who are visual learners should be given lessons and activities that comply with their style of learning, students who auditory learners should receive instructions in this area, students who need extra time should get that time, students who are overachievers should have additional assignments that they can independently complete and so forth. So, this helps my students to have an enjoyable and productive day every day.

 As a teacher it is necessary to be fair to all of the students. I always make sure to hear out students and treat each one of my pupils with dignity and respect. I try not to make differences in them and give the ones that appear a bit disobedient as much respect as I give those who present themselves respectfully all of the time. I can say that they all love and appreciate me for this attitude of being fair to all my students.

I try to use the Cooperative Learning Strategy like Think-Pair-Share to make or build relationships. As it is a simple way to ensure that all students are getting an equal chance to participate. This approach gives all students the opportunity to have an equal chance at participating (even if they don’t want to). This strategy involves having students write their ideas down about a specific topic, pair up with a partner or a neighbor in class and discuss and compare their thoughts, then share their thoughts with the whole class.