According to the article "Rethinking classroom management", there is an old conception of this term:
The authors think that we need to deep into the classic concept to define a new one: "teaching and learning management", which implies a process of great complexity.
First, we need to know that there are three interrelated areas to analyse in order to understand this concept:
- Organisational issues
- Curriculum issues
- Social issues
If these three areas are not integrated it won't be guaranteed a successful teaching and learning management.
Organisational issues:
As the authors say, it is very important to explicit rights and duties in the school, and at classroom level, rules should be the result of a process of negociation between students and teachers. All the students will participate in the process so it will be easy to follow the rules because they all feel part of the community.
Once we have the rules, the teacher should be coherent and consistent in its aplication, he should be kind and firm.
Curriculum issues:
In order to be communicative teachers, we have to read the curriculum, not only we have to transmit contents unidirectionally, but also we should establish our goals in terms of WHAT to teach and HOW to do it.
The activities have to be powerful and meaningful so that enable students to think deeply and critically; give them opportunities to be creative, innovative,...; enable pupils to manage risks and respond possitively to challenges; contribute to progression on learning and finally, engage ALL the students.
Moreover, it is a very important point to take in account, the fact that most students love working individually or in cooperative groups. As teachers we have to bear in mind that they really learn when they are able to practice that contents.
On the one hand, cooperative learning is useful since students feel all important, helps improving their oral skills, it promotes students' social skills and increases their self-esteem. But it is crucial for the cooperative learning' success to be taught to the students how to participate in a group situation.
On the other hand, individual learning is also necessary for the students because they can develop self-discipline, needed for future real life.
Social issues:
According to the authors' point of view, teachers have to provide the conditions needed for learning. Some social issues can emerge from the other two areas, such as self-esteem, respect,...etc. but they do not have sense without the establishment of a positive affective relationship in the classroom. Students need to feel safe, secure and accepted in the class to learn better.
This relationship has to be bidirectional, students must respect the teacher and the teacher must respect the students.
To conclude with this reflection I would like to say that although the teacher's job is difficult and can be hard, we have to do it all with optimism. As teachers we will have to work hard to create effective and meaningful activities and we also have to think deeply how to assess and how to manage our classroom, but we have a great amount of resources and ideas to promote a successful teaching and learning management.
I have very much enjoyed reading your blog entry Diana and have found it very well organized and clear. You raise some very important issues about our roles as primary teachers, particularly the issue of creating a risk-free, safe environment for our students. Well done!
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