Learning objectives
After studying this chapter, you should be able to:
• Identify ways to promote a positive teaching and learning environment
• Recognise practices that engage and motivate students in learning
• Appreciate the importance of positive student–teacher relationships
• Ascertain effective strategies for responding to students’ off-task behaviour
Introduction
This chapter and the preceding chapter describe the various ways in which you might manage your classroom. Chapter 8 introduced some of the main theoretical frameworks for classroom management and how these connect to teaching and learning practices. In this chapter, we extend the discussion by considering classroom management in relation to creating engaging and motivating learning environments. Engagement and motivation are essential to young people's success in various educational contexts, including early years, primary and secondary settings, and they can only occur in positive learning environments. Establishing and fostering such environments through effective classroom management is a source of concern for many preservice teachers, and will continue to be as teachers progress throughout their career. This chapter provides an overview of various proactive strategies that serve to promote positive teaching and learning environments along with strategies for responding to student disengagement or off-task behaviour. Positive student–teacher relationships will also be described as an essential component for engaging and motivating students’ learning.
Classroom management, behaviour management and discipline are terms that are often used interchangeably. As described in Chapter 8, classroom management is defined as encapsulating ‘teacher actions and instructional techniques to create a learning environment that facilitates and supports active engagement in both academic and social and emotional learning’ (McDonald, 2013, p. 20). This definition is chosen because of its holistic nature; it incorporates effective teaching practices that promote deep learning and engagement, validates positive and caring teacher–student relationships, and highlights the need to identify and address young people's social and emotional needs. Finally, this definition is useful as it acknowledges that classroom management is complex and is much more than merely establishing rules and rewards to control student behaviour.
OPENING VIGNETTE
It's your first placement in a busy urban school. You have been assigned a mentor who, while very experienced, appears somewhat jaded and tired. Once the bell rings, the students wait noisily outside the classroom; many swear in jest to each other and jostle to enter.