Effective Classroom Management Facilitates Deep Learning in Students
Children are influenced by everything around them all the time and when they are together, they can be a handful once every while just as they can be curiously aligned to inspire a self sustained atmosphere of ardent learning and growth. The physical surroundings and the setting in which students gather to learn and study plays a rather significant role in their enthusiastic minds; an asset as it can be molded by educators to suit the need of the hour.
Classrooms can be like a field filled with saplings looking up at the early morning sky and awaiting sunlight; with hunger in their eyes and more often than not, with their faith pledged in the room almost as if they were assured that they would be satiated for their curiosities; each pair of eyes distinctly tilted and glinted. No two children are alike and as teachers, we at Nalapad Academy believe that every child, like every sapling, grows best when they are nurtured with individual attention.
While the term classroom alludes to the traditional schooling method of assembling children institutionally to inculcate a sense of order and discipline, classrooms have evolved with changing times just as academic institutions have. During the Covid-19 pandemic, we saw for the first time, classrooms explored using the concept of ‘online classes’ across various audio-visual tools. With kids returning to school, the classroom at the campus has reemerged to be the physical space that brings them together to instill an atmosphere that inspires optimum learning.
Having established the importance of the classroom component, we at Nalapad Academy use various teaching methods and therefore, alter our settings as required to effectively enhance the curious streaks in our children. Over the years, we have recognized and therefore rely on effective classroom management to impart the most learning that is possible.
Depths of Learning Inspired by Effectively Rendered Classrooms –
- 1. Focus –
Discipline is a result of a healthy routine that is organized to ensure optimum performance as we all know and a physical foundation as it establishes a sense of order, and achieves the ease of cultivating the same in children. Toddlers are often more susceptible to sitting in the same seat as they are instructed as a result of visually recognising the cues of instruction.
By ensuring that all kids gather in their classrooms punctually, focus as it becomes the bigger goal, is achieved. Children automatically learn to settle down and get ready to focus on their lessons. - 2. Efficiency –
The benefits of being organized include saving time. Children are able to recognise that an organized bag with all their study tools arranged neatly, with a study plan, and as they watch their teacher engage them in teaching plans that are well organized too; they are able to learn that one can learn and do more sooner, when a plan is in place. - 3. Social Decorum –
Although surrounded by the same all day – all year peers/playmates and familiar faces; children are transported for class, into a disciplined ambience that is gently regulated by the respective teacher based on the given day’s lesson plan. Subjects are discussed within the classroom via interactions alongside various other tools.
Children are often seen learning and without many instructions, a rather organized way of navigating through a large group to communicate with their teacher effectively. Children raise their hands and wait for their turn. They listen to their teammates talk and know that the teacher’s cue comes first. When they are met with an argument, they learn to engage in a healthy debate as opposed to reflexively reacting.
The classroom is a social group in itself and each one of our students, an independent individual with a varied spectrum of skills. We learn to respect and accept one another. - 4. Attention from a Teacher and Error Correction –
When children are collectively monitored by a teacher in a classroom, the teacher pays attention to the manner in which each of them responds to any given instructions, responses to peers amidst academic interactions, over the course of learning, and as they interact in a social setting as it assumes a small scale make believe presence. The teacher is allowed a direct insight into the real time possibility of error correction and children benefit from being given immediate feedback. - 5. Critical Thinking, Collaborative Learning, and Healthy Competencies –
Interactions as they unravel within a group or a social setting within a controlled environment is an opportunity for cumulative learning. Children are able to enhance their ability to think critically, draw lessons from teamwork, and to build a healthy idea of competences all of which are relevant lessons in the world today.
Classrooms are therefore, mini versions of social settings that engage with academic and professional schools of thought. With a teacher to monitor the controlled environment, room for error correction and channelizing positively, is made possible. With new tools introduced to enhance and manage classrooms effectively, students are in for multifold opportunities.