Productive Learning Environments

My personal philosophy regarding the creation of a productive learning environment is that it begins with you. Wanting for the students to be successful and also walking into the classroom every day with good intentions and strong expectations really does change the way students perceive you and your class. From there I think the keys surrounding classroom management are setting clear rules and expectations that the students know but can also refer back to when necessary, time management and understanding. The first part, setting clear rules and expectations, is set up both at the beginning of the school year and the beginning of every class period. Class rules like “be respectful” may be posted permanently in the room while daily expectations such as “journal entry” may be on the white board. As for time management, being able to fill the class period without stressing any student out for making them work too quickly is an important thing to learn to do and do consistently. Finally, being understanding sort of explains itself, but always remember that just like you, your students have bad days and good days and days in between, that does not mean you shouldn’t give them a clean slate the next day or the next minute. I feel like the reason classroom management is so important is because it is essentially the skill of being able to make students feel safe and able to learn, and without that there is no reason to attend school. If students are not learning and they feel like they are under attack, school is no longer something that is working for them or for their community. So being able to quiet a room, to enthuse a room, to make a room a safe place to learn, those are the skills that teachers need to have and to hone. It starts with the teacher, the self, and it goes from there outward, all the way into the community.