Many beginning teachers face the problem of effective teaching and controlling the dynamics of the classroom in their early career. Questions such as What do I do if a student disrupts my lesson? and How can I control a class without imposing overly rigid and inflexible rules? are common among beginning teachers. There is always a search for techniques and approaches which can create a conductive learning environment and maintain orderliness in the classroom.
Good classroom management practices begin on the first day of school. Classroom management is a key part of the teachers overall leadership role and it cannot be separated from the other aspects of teaching. Be it planning a lesson, practicing reward and punishment, developing class activities, engaging the students in student-centred approaches, attending to student motivation, or implementing different instructional tasks, they all demand appropriate behaviour befitting of the occasion and environment on the part of the students. All these elements within the perspectives of classroom management point towards building a positive learning environment to engage the students in learning, so as to minimize behavioural problems and disruptions in lessons.
This book attempts to address some of the issues related to classroom management and the facilitation of teaching and learning. The book is divided into the following four parts: Learning Environment (Part 1), Characteristics of Effective Teachers (Part 2), Organising and Managing Instruction (Part 3) and Coping with Classroom Challenges (Part 4). Comprising a total of 12 chapters, the text is structured such that each chapter focuses on a different aspect of teaching and classroom management.