Classroom Management

So far, my experiences with classroom management have been positive, for the most part. In the past few weeks, I've tried to work on building a classroom environment where students feel confident and comfortable contributing to the learning process. While this is definitely a work in progress (lots of trial and error) I generally feel like things were moving in the right direction. Today's class, however, was enough to put make me question just how successful I've been...

Class started normally, the usual chatter going on as I collected homework and took attendance. Then, 5 or 6 students from another class showed up at my door. Apparently, their teacher was running the school's blood drive today, and because substitutes are not provided for such an occasion, this teacher's class was divided up into groups of 5 or 6 and told to just sit quietly in various teachers' rooms. I have major issues with this, but I'll have to save that for another time.

I told the additional students to take a seat wherever there was an empty desk (and there weren't many in my class of 33 students). Then I started the lesson. I've been working on teaching my students how to pull out main ideas from written documents as we study the Reformation. Part of my plan involved students reading various excerpts out loud (something they've done many times with me before). Today, nobody was having any part of my lesson. The talking did not stop. Students were getting up, sitting down, getting up again, etc. Notes were being passed, daydreaming was going on, and I was trying to manage and control the whole scene. I can say with confidence that I did not do a good job.

I learned a lot from today. I learned that one unexpected element in my class (the additional students) has the potential to disrupt the entire environment. I learned that I probably didn't do a great job at adjusting my class to that new element. I also learned that I need to figure out some concrete management techniques that will work with my class. I don't want to keep them quiet with worksheets and bookwork. I'm not afraid of raising my voice (the students know this) but in general, I want to be able to engage everyone in the goal for that day so that things are less likely to get off track.

I know I have time to learn this and plenty of resources to help me. In fact, I think I'm going to go call my Penn Mentor on this one...