Classroom management is a teacher’s style or technique to keep their students attentive and motivated. Proper classroom management will also assure that the class runs smoothly without disruption, control, manage students’ behavior and discipline. Whether physical classroom or online class, proper classroom management is needed. Managing the classroom is one of the hardest parts of being a teacher because the students must know what to expect every day when it comes to routine activities.
In this time of Pandemic, teachers are facing different challenges. An online class is one of the different alternative modalities to address the problem in Education. The online class is not an easy task for teachers, since students are not physically present it is hard to measure students’ learnings. To monitor the students, the teacher should be attentive to what the students are doing during the online class. Managing students and keeping them motivated at the same time is a challenge for the teachers, we don’t know whether our students listen to our discussion or not. There are also some hindrances like internet connection, there are some instances that the internet of students or teachers are weak, that causes disturbed or unfinished online class, and thus to cope up, we need an extra time for it.
We all know that as a teacher we need to be flexible and should come up with different strategies to have effective online classroom management. Before the online class, give your students time to remove all the things that could distract them. Next is to ask your students to find a quiet place to avoid background noise or distractions, mute the microphone of the gadgets if needed, using headphones can also help. Remind your students to treat online class like a face-to-face class, sit properly in a front of a webcam, wearing a uniform to feel that they are in school. Proper eye contact with the webcam, encourage them to smile and talk politely. Of course, not only students should do those things, as a teacher you should be a role model. In an online class, teachers need to present or share their PowerPoint presentation, motivate them using your slide, create an interesting slide use different virtual cues that can indicate specific actions. Use blackboard as a background of your slide for the students to feel the actual classroom, notebook icon means it’s time for a quiz. If the students are motivated, learned, and enjoyed your lesson, you manage your class effectively.
Teachers have different strategies like raising student’s hands if they want to answer or using a chat box if they encountered some problems during class like teachers can’t hear the students or vice versa. Zoom has a property called breakout rooms where the teacher can assign two or more students to a separated virtual room to have a small discussion and then send a minute countdown to return to the main Zoom room.
Sometimes students answer one at a time, some ask questions, and some make unproductive gossip that leads to distraction or interruption. To handle these situations, agree to have hand signals even if they are muted. Teachers can choose to mute students from speaking if they are dominating the conversation. Teachers can also use hand signals, for instance when you need everybody to pay attention, you could stop speaking and raise both hands as a sign for the rest of the class to stop talking.
Poor online classroom management creates an ineffective learning environment. Preparing everything you need before the online class can lead to managing the online class effectively.
References: 10 Virtual Classroom Management Strategies for Online Teaching | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (hmhco.com)
7 Strategies for Managing an Online Classroom – Kickboard (kickboardforschools.com)
By: Margie S. Junio | Teacher I | Jesus Is Lord Christian School
