What is it about wet weather that makes children go crazy?!  Okay, maybe crazy isn’t the best choice of word, but they do go a little wild.  I teach secondary school in the UK, all the way from 11-18 year olds, and it astounds me how hyped up the kids get when they’ve been kept inside due to the rain.

And where I live, we get a lot of rain!

I can understand that they get frustrated as they want to be outside, and that they have a lot of ready to burn energy, but sometimes the way they come back into school shocks me just a little.

Of course, if you have a wide range of effective classroom management strategies up your sleeve then you can quickly get your class under control. 

But I still find it astonishing how hyper the students are after a rainy break time.

The forecast for tomorrow is more rain, so I better make sure that I’m on the ball, and think carefully how I’m going to proactively manage their behavior.  As with all types of poor student behavior in the classroom, if you proactively manage the outcome, the you take away a LOT of the stress during the lesson.

Well, at least I have ANOTHER reason now to emigrate to a sunny country…

Positive behavior in the classroom can make all the difference between an enjoyable teaching experience, and a teacher suffering from work related stress.  Having effective classroom management strategies really is that important.

So how exactly do you promote positive behavior in the classroom?  Below are three effective classroom management strategies that will reduce negative student behavior fast.

1. Be positive.

If you’re negative, then the students that you teach will also be negative.  And negative 
students are not well behaved students.  If you remain positive in the classroom, no matter how tired and stressed you feel, then you will have a better chance of promoting positive behavior in the pupils that you teach.

I don’t agree with the whole don’t smile until Christmas mantra.  Yes, you want to establish firm boundaries with the students you teach, but teaching with bubbly enthusiasm can do wonders for your classroom management skills.  Set clear limits, but remain positive while doing so, and your students will reward you with improved students behavior.

2. Highlight good behavior

How can students demonstrate positive behavior in the classroom, if they don’t know what it  is?  Find excellent examples of student behavior and then highlight it to the class. 

Highlight this good behavior, and explain why its good.  This can be as simple as praising a  group doing excellent quiet work, or a student who demonstrates constructive behavior with his peers.  Highlight good behavior and the behavior of the students you teach will 
increase.

3. Model good behavior

Like it or not, but in the classroom you are a role model.  And you’re a pretty influential 
one too.  So if you want to promote positive behavior in the classroom, then you better 
demonstrate as well. 

If students see you as moody, temperamental aggressive or worse, then you are not demonstrating the correct ways to behave in a classroom environment.  Show the  students how to behave well through your own actions, and your classroom will become a more peaceful place.

If you wan to promote positive behavior in the classroom then try these three top tips 
today.  Classroom management problems can be like a cycle.  When you experience poor student behavior you become negative, and the behavior gets worse.  Break the cycle today by being  positive and the students that you teach will reward you with improved behavior.

If you’re stuck in a rut, with your pupils running wild, then you need to give your classroom management skills a top up.  Apply these three effective classroom management tips and notice an improvement in the student behavior  in your classes.

Number 1. Always Stay Positive – You’re stuck in a rut in the middle of January and what happens?  Yep, you become downbeat and negative.

But here’s the thing. If you’re negative, then your students will be negative too. And that will make classroom management even more difficult.

You become negative, and so do your pupils.  Before you know it you are in a terrible cycle that leads to poor pupil behavior and ineffective classroom management.

Take yourself out of the bubble and try and remember why you became a teacher in the first place.

If you can walk into your classroom with a smile on your face you will get a much more positive reaction from your students.

Stay positive and effective classroom management will be so much easier to achieve.

Number 2. Praise your students until you can’t praise anymore – Praise your pupils at every possible opportunity if you want to experience a positive learning environment. You need to train your students exactly how you want them to behave, and the use of praise is an excellent way to do this.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking.  Finding good pupil behavior is hard when you’re dealing with the worst kids in school.  But what you need to do is actively seek out good student beavior.  And then heap a ton of praise upon it.

And remember this.  Even the worst students behave for brief moments! Praise that good behavior and you are training the students you teach to behave like that again in the future.

Number 3. Use the language of choice –  Instead of telling children to do something, explain to them that you would like them to chose to do something. This subtle change in language is incredibly powerful and is sure to produce positive results.

An example of this would be explaining to Mike “I would like you to choose to sit down quietly”, as opposed to saying “sit down quietly”.

Classroom management is an incredibly subtle art, and small changes can have a huge impact on the relationship you have with your pupils.

Don’t believe me? Try it out tomorrow in your classroom. 

Use the language of choice and you will notice a huge improvement in your classroom management skills.  If you do it right that is.

So what is effective classroom management, and how can it be used to reduce innappropriate classroom behavior?

With more and more teachers suffering an ever increasing amount of teacher stress at the hands of negative student behavior, it is of no surprise to find so many teachers coming online to try and find effective classroom management tips.

There is no doubt that effective classroom management can provoke positive behavior in the students you teacher, while at the same time helping to reduce teacher stress. 

Different teachers have different standards of behavior that they expect from the students they teach, and so ideas about what is inappropriate pupil behavior, and what is an effective classroom management plan varies from teacher to teacher.

In my opinion, classroom management is effective when you are able to minimise innapropriate student behavior, and promote a positive learning atmosphere.

How you achieve a positive learning environomnet in your classroom is secondary to actually achieving it. 

Some people tell you that in order to have effective classroom management strategies you must be a strict teacher.  Others will tell you that the opposite is true. 

It’s important to realize however that we are all professionals with different skills and different personalities.   Stop trying to follow one one good  classroom mangement model, and understand that we are all made different, and so we will all teach differently. 

Effective clasroom management will differ from teacher to teacher.  How the teacher minimises inaproprate classroom behavior isn’t that important.  What is important is that the teacher uses their unique skills to promote positive student behavior in the classroom.